THE  ARVNDEL  LIBRARY 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


EX  LIBRIS 
GUSTAV  GLUCK 


THE   ARUNDEL   LIBRARY 
OF    GREAT   MASTERS 


The  ^Arundel  Library   of  Qreat  Masters 

ANTHONY  VAN   DYCK.     A  Further  Study  by 
Lionel  Cust 

SANDRO   BOTTICELLI.     By  Adolf  Paul  Oppe 
LONDON:    HODDER   AND   STOUGHTON 


*J?. 

ANTHONY  VAN  DYGK 

A    FURTHER     STUDY     BY    LIONEL    CUST 
WITH   TWENTY-FIVE    ILLUSTRATIONS    IN 
COLOUR  EXECUTED  UNDER  THE  SUPER- 
VISION OF  THE  MEDICI  SOCIETY 


HODDER    AND    STOUGHTON :    PUBLISHERS 
LONDON    AND    NEW    YORK 


Art 
Library 


A  VACADEMJE  ROTALE  DES  BEAUX  ARTS  D'ANFERS 


HOMMAGE 


LIONEL  CUST 

{Membre  Honoraire) 


Juillet  1 91  x . 


877476 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

I.   Anthony  Van  Dyck,  as  a  Boy. 
Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  Vienna. 

II.  The  Holy  Family. 

Imperial  Gallery,  Vienna. 

III.  An  Artist  with  his  Wife  and  Child. 

Hermitage,  Petersburg. 

IV.  The  Redeemer  with  the  Four  Penitent  Sinners. 

Augsburg. 

V.   Marchesa  Balbi. 

Sir  G.  L.  Holford,  Dorchester  House,  London. 

VI.  The  Balbi  Children. 

Lord  Lucas,  National  Gallery. 

VII.  The  Virgin  and  Child  with  St.  Catherine  of  Alexandria. 
Duke  of  Westminster,  Grosvenor  House,  London. 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

VIII.   Christ  on  the  Cross. 

Imperial  Gallery,  Vienna. 

IX.  The  Lamentation  over  Christ. 
Museum,  Antwerp. 

X.   Prince  Charles  Louis  of  Bavaria. 
Imperial  Gallery,  Vienna. 

XI.   Prince  Rupert  of  Bavaria. 
Imperial  Gallery,  Vienna. 

XII.   Maria  Luigia  de  Tassis. 

Liechtenstein  Collection,  Vienna. 

XIII.  Francisco  de  Moncada,  Marques  d'Aytona. 

Louvre,  Paris. 

XIV.  Rinaldo  and  Armida. 

Duke  of  Newcastle,  Clumber. 

XV.   Philip,  Lord  Wharton. 

Hermitage,  Petersburg. 
XVI.   Queen  Henrietta  Maria. 

Lady  Wantage,  Loclcinge. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

XVII.  The  Earl  and  Countess  of  Derby  and  Child. 

Messrs.  Knoedler  &  Co.,  London  and  New  York. 

XVIII.   William  Cavendish,  Duke  of  Newcastle. 
Duke  of  Portland,  Welbeck. 

XIX.   Arthur  Goodwin,  M.P. 

Duke  of  Devonshire,  Chatsworth. 

XX.   Sir  William  Killigrew. 

Duke  of  Newcastle,  Clumber. 

XXI.   Mrs.  Anne  Kirke. 

Lord  Lucas,  National  Gallery. 

XXII.   Lucius  Cary,  Viscount  Falkland. 

Duke  of  Devonshire,  Devonshire  House,  London. 

XXIII.  Thomas  Wentworth,  Earl  of  Strafford,  and  his  Secretary. 

Earl  Fitzwilliam,  Wentworth  Woodhouse. 

XXIV.  William,  Prince  of  Orange,  and  Princess  Mary  Stuart. 

Ryks  Museum,  Amsterdam. 

XXV.   Anthony  Van  Dyck  with  a  Sunflower. 

Duke  of  Westminster,  Grosvenor  House,  London. 


ANTHONY    VAN    DYCK 


ANTHONY   VAN   DYCK 

CHAPTER    I 

TWELVE  years  have  now  elapsed  since  the  citizens 
of  Antwerp  watched  the  stately  procession  through 
their  streets  of  that  wonderful  cortege  i  Les  Arts 
a  travers  les  Ages,'  contrived  by  the  artists  of  Antwerp  to 
do  honour  to  one  of  their  predecessors,  Anthony  Van 
Dyck.  Similar  honour  had  been  done  previously  to  Van 
Dyck's  great  master,  Rubens,  and  at  a  later  date  a  tribute 
on  a  more  modified  scale  was  accorded  to  the  illustrious 
memory  of  Jacob  Jordaens.  The  association  of  these  three 
great  painters,  as  representative  of  what  was  greatest  in 
the  art-history  of  Antwerp,  received  a  further  and  stronger 
acknowledgment  at  the  Brussels  International  Exhibition 
of  1 9 1  o,  where,  in  the  section  set  apart  for  the  illustration 
of  the  Ancient  Art  of  Belgium  during  the  seventeenth 
century,  the  main  part  of  the  Exhibition  of  Paintings  con- 
sisted of  the  works  of  Rubens,  Van  Dyck,  and  Jordaens, 
with  a  few  others.  It  was  thus  recognised  that  the  great- 
ness of  these  three  painters  belonged  not  only  to  the  city 
of  Antwerp,  but  to  the  Belgian  nation  as  a  whole.  This 
recognition  has  to  a  great  extent  been  adopted  by  the 
whole  world  of  art-criticism.  Rubens  had  long  been  ac- 
cepted as  one  of  the  giant  figures  in  the  history  of  the  Fine 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Arts,  but  the  prudish  ignorance  and  prejudice  which  pre- 
vailed so  strongly  at  certain  times  during  the  nineteenth 
century  impeded  for  too  long  a  time  any  proper  concep- 
tion of  the  true  dimensions  of  his  vast  genius.  Van  Dyck, 
on  the  other  hand,  could  offend  no  drawing-room  suscep- 
tibilities, and  his  name  was  a  comfortable  cloak  for  num- 
berless mediocre  productions  of  his  school  and  period. 
Jordaens  hardly  came  within  the  purview  of  the  nineteenth 
century  at  all.  It  was  a  harder  task  to  convince  the  public 
mind  that  Jordaens,  like  Frans  Hals,  was  a  great  and  true 
artist  in  paint,  and  that  if  he  painted  the  somewhat  coarse 
and  exuberant  life  of  his  time  and  his  home,  he  was  as 
much  entitled  to  do  this  as  the  artists  of  the  nineteenth 
century  were  to  depict  the  elegant  inanities  and  affecta- 
tions of  their  own  surroundings. 

The  tercentenary  of  the  birth  of  Anthony  Van  Dyck 
at  Antwerp  in  1599  was  the  signal  for  an  extensive  out- 
put of  books  and  essays  dealing  with  the  painter  and  his 
works.  It  may  well  be  questioned  whether  the  time  has 
yet  arrived  for  a  new  study  of  Van  Dyck,  or  whether  the 
subject  has  not  already  been  treated  with  somewhat  be- 
wildering exhaustiveness.  When,  however,  such  master 
minds  in  the  history  of  Art  as  Max  Rooses,  Wilhelm  Bode, 
Gustav  Gliick,  to  mention  only  a  few  of  those  who  have 
made  a  special  study  of  Van  Dyck,  have  contributed  so 
much  new  material  to  this  particular  chapter  of  history, 
there  may  be  some  excuse  for  reviewing  the  ground  which 
was  covered  some  ten  years  ago  by  the  present  writer's 
book  on  Van  Dyck.    The  course  of  historical  research  so 

2 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

patiently  pursued  by  so  many  devoted  students  is  always 
bringing  to  light  new  evidence,  documentary  or  pictorial, 
which  throws  light  on  disputed  points,  corrects  errors, 
and  supplies  omissions. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  modern  research  has  added  little 
to  the  main  facts  of  Van  Dyck's  life  as  already  presented 
to  the  world.  His  life  and  career,  so  prolific  and  yet  so 
prematurely  ended,  divides  itself  into  four  distinct  periods 
— the  painter's  early  life  and  artistic  education  at  Antwerp, 
his  visit  to  Italy  and  residence  at  Genoa,  his  return  to  Ant- 
werp, and  finally,  his  removal  to  London  as  court-painter 
to  Charles  I.  Each  of  these  periods  can  be  sharply  defined, 
not  only  by  actual  date,  but  by  a  characteristic  difference 
of  style,  according  to  the  demand  and  environment  of 
each  period  in  the  artist's  career.  This  is  quite  peculiar 
to  Van  Dyck,  and  not  to  be  paralleled  in  the  case  of  any 
of  his  great  contemporaries.  Rubens  was  always  Rubens 
in  his  person  and  in  his  art,  the  Rubens  of  the  Palais  du 
Luxembourg  is  the  same  man  as  the  Rubens  of  Antwerp 
or  the  Munich  Gallery.  Velazquez  in  Italy  is  the  same 
cold,  emotionless  Spaniard  as  Velazquez  of  Madrid.  Rem- 
brandt passes  through  the  sunshine  of  fashion  to  a  tragic 
and  gloomy  neglect,  but  the  Rembrandt  who  smiles  at 
Leyden  is  the  same  Rembrandt  who  is  found  in  moody 
and  neglected  gloom  at  Amsterdam.  The  Van  Dyck, 
however,  of  the  Genoese  Palaces  is  a  different  man  from 
the  Van  Dyck  of  the  Munich  or  Dresden  Gallery,  and 
both  these  Van  Dycks  are  different  men  from  the  Van 
Dyck  of  Windsor  Castle.     The  artist  is  the  same,  but  the 

3 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

man  himself  is  different ;  and  he  died  at  the  age  of  forty- 
one  !  At  that  age  Rubens  had  not  painted  the  Marie  de 
Medicis  series  for  the  Luxembourg  Palace,  Velazquez  had 
not  painted  the  Meninas  or  the  Hilanderas^  and,  in  the 
case  of  Rembrandt,  the  Staalmeester  was  still  to  come. 
Frans  Hals  had  already  reached  the  age  of  thirty-four  at 
the  earliest  date  known  to  exist  on  one  of  his  paintings,  at 
which  age  Van  Dyck  had  reached  the  fourth  period  of  his 
career,  and  was  already  installed  as  court-painter  in  Eng- 
land. The  only  parallel  to  such  a  career  is  in  the  life  and 
work  of  Raffaello  Sanzio,  who  died  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
seven.  Great  as  was  Raffaello's  achievement,  his  output 
was  small  in  comparison  to  that  which  can  safely  be  attri- 
buted to  Van  Dyck.  Success  so  immediate  and  complete 
argues  a  perfect  readiness  of  the  soil  to  produce  the  artistic 
growth  of  flower  and  fruit.  Home  surroundings,  national 
encouragement,  personal  affection  and  sympathy,  must  all 
blend  together  in  one  harmonious  whole  to  bring  forth  a 
Van  Dyck.  Rubens  would  probably  have  been  great  in 
whatever  circumstances  he  had  been  born  and  bred,  but 
Van  Dyck  might  have  been  but  second-rate  had  it  not 
been  for  the  inspiring  influence  of  Rubens  and  Titian  on 
his  adolescent  skill. 

Anthony  Van  Dyck  was  born  in  affluence,  and  never, 
like  so  many  famous  artists,  exposed  to  privation  or  the 
pinch  of  poverty.  His  father,  Frans  Van  Dyck,  was  a 
prosperous  mercer  or  silk,  linen,  and  wool  merchant  at 
Antwerp,  as  his  father  Antoon  Van  Dyck  had  been  before 
him.    At  the  time  of  the  painter's  birth  in  1599  the  busi- 

4 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

ness  was  carried  on  in  partnership  by  Frans  Van  Dyck,  his 
mother,  Cornelia  Pruystincx  by  birth,  and  his  brother-in- 
law,  Sebastian  de  Smit.  Frans  Van  Dyck  was  twice  mar- 
ried, and  by  his  second  wife,  Maria  Cuypers  (or  Cupers), 
he  had  twelve  children,  the  last  of  whom  was  the  cause  of 
the  mother's  death  in  1607. 

Antoon,  or  Anthony  Van  Dyck,  so-called  after  his 
grandfather,  was  the  seventh  child  and  second  son  of 
Frans  Van  Dyck  and  Maria  Cuypers,  the  family  consisting 
of  three  sons  and  nine  daughters.  Of  the  sons,  the  eldest, 
Frans,  succeeded  to  the  family  business,  the  youngest, 
Theodorus,  became  a  priest.  Anthony  was  born  on 
March  22,  1599,  in  a  house,  bearing  the  sign  of '  der 
Berendans,'  just  off  the  Grootmarkt  and  opposite  to  the 
Hoogstraat,  which  had  been  purchased  by  his  grand- 
father in  1579.  The  next  day  Anthony  was  baptized  in 
the  great  Cathedral  close  by.  Here  Frans  Van  Dyck  held 
a  post  as  director  of  the  Chapel  of  the  Holy  Sacrament  in 
the  Cathedral.  The  devotion  of  the  family  to  the  service 
of  the  Church  is  evident  from  the  fact,  that  not  only  did 
the  youngest  son  become  a  priest,  but  one  daughter, 
Anna,  became  a  nun  of  the  Facontine  Convent,  and  three 
other  daughters,  Susanna,  Cornelia  and  Isabella,  became 
btguines.  It  is  clear,  moreover,  that  throughout  the  vary- 
ing circumstances  of  his  life,  Anthony  Van  Dyck  was 
profoundly  religious  and  susceptible  to  the  authority  and 
teaching  of  the  Church,  especially  of  the  Jesuit  order. 

It  is  important  in  studying  the  history  of  the  Fine 
Arts  at  Antwerp  at  this  period  to  discover  the  influential 

5 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

part  played  by  the  Jesuits.  Since  the  death  of  its  founder, 
Ignatius  Loyola,  in  1556,  the  Society  of  Jesus  had  grown 
to  maturity  and  was  in  full  vigour  at  the  time  of  the  birth 
of  Van  Dyck.  Under  Moretus,  the  famous  printer  and 
founder  of  the  Plantin  Press  at  Antwerp,  religious  works 
of  a  propagandist  character,  replete  with  allegorical  and 
emblematical  illustrations,  were  issued  and  circulated 
about  the  whole  civilised  world.  The  art  of  Rubens  was 
affected  profoundly  by  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  and  in 
some  instances  can  only  be  explained  by  reference  to  their 
teaching.  Rubens  himself,  though  a  devout  Catholic,  does 
not  reveal  a  personality  deeply  affected  by  the  religion 
which  he  was  called  upon  to  illustrate  in  so  copious  and  so 
grandiose  a  manner.  The  more  sensitive,  more  impulsive, 
almost  feminine  temperament  of  Van  Dyck,  was  more  sus- 
ceptible to  such  influence  and  to  the  atmosphere  of  the 
Church,  and  this  must  be  borne  in  mind  when  the  re- 
ligious paintings  by  Van  Dyck  are  a  subject  for  discussion. 
There  was  nothing  in  Van  Dyck's  family  to  divert  the 
boy  specially  to  the  study  of  painting.  The  family  appear 
to  have  been  well-to-do,  prosperous  merchants  in  com- 
fortable circumstances.  The  mother  seems  to  have 
enjoyed  a  reputation  for  artistic  work,  and  may  have 
transmitted  some  such  gifts  to  her  second  son,  although  she 
died  when  the  boy  was  of  too  tender  an  age  to  have  derived 
much  benefit  from  her  example.  The  profession  of  an 
artist,  however,  whether  painter,  sculptor,  architect,  en- 
graver or  jeweller,  was  as  well  recognised  in  bourgeois 
circles  at  Antwerp  as  that  of  the  notary,  the  merchant  or 
6 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

the  priest.  Environment  in  each  case  probably  played  a 
large  part.  The  family  of  Van  Dyck  seems  to  have  been 
on  the  most  friendly  and  neighbourly  terms  with  some 
families  most  of  whose  sons  became  painters,  particularly 
those  of  De  Wael,  Brueghel  and  Snellinck,  all  related  to 
each  other  by  marriage  with  the  family  of  the  well-known 
engraver  and  publisher,  Gerard  de  Jode.  Jan  Snellinck, 
himself  a  leading  painter  and  picture  dealer  at  Antwerp, 
took  as  his  second  wife,  Paulina  Cuypers,  who  was  pro- 
bably a  relation  of  Van  Dyck's  mother.  Rubens  himself 
had  hardly  begun  c  like  a  colossus  to  bestride  the  world  ' 
at  the  time  of  Van  Dyck's  birth,  and  was  actually  absent 
on  his  JVanderjahre  for  most  of  the  first  decade  of  Van 
Dyck's  life.  There  was,  however,  a  flourishing  school  of 
painting  at  Antwerp,  which  had  been  profoundly  affected 
by  Italian  influence  ;  this,  however,  was  fortunately  on 
the  wane.  One  branch  of  this  school  was  represented  by 
Octavio  van  Veen,  or  Otto  Venius,  from  whom  proceeded 
Rubens  ;  another  branch,  which  confined  itself  princi- 
pally to  small  paintings  with  minutely  executed  figures, 
was  represented  by  Hendrik  van  Balen.  A  third,  of  coarser 
style  and  more  typically  Flemish,  the  school  of  Adam  van 
Noordt,  was  represented  by  Jordaens.  Yet  another 
branch,  deriving  itself  from  the  painter  Marten  de  Vos, 
reached  its  eminence  in  the  painter-brothers,  Cornelis  and 
Pauwel  de  Vos.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  parents  of 
Anthony  Van  Dyck  should  have  selected  Van  Balen  as 
a  teacher  for  their  precocious  son.  Van  Balen,  who  was 
a  great  personal  friend  of  Rubens,  and  had  been  a  fellow- 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

pupil  with  him  in  early  days  under  Van  Noordt,  was  a 
correct  and  rather  attractive  painter,  succeeding  best 
when  his  pictures  were  on  a  small  scale.  Snyders  had 
been  his  pupil,  and  in  1609  Van  Balen,  then  Dean  of 
the  Guild  of  St.  Luke,  at  Antwerp,  entered  two  boy-artists 
on  the  books  of  the  guild,  Jooys  Soeterman  (Justus  Sut- 
termans),  the  pupil  of  the  painter  Gilliam  de  Vos,  and 
Anthony  Van  Dyck,  pupil  of  Van  Balen  himself.  Van 
Balen  was  also  a  great  friend  of  the  Brueghel  family,  to 
whose  work  his  art  was  much  allied,  and  the  younger  Jan 
Brueghel,  a  year  or  so  junior  in  birth  to  Van  Dyck,  was 
also  a  pupil  in  Van  Balen's  studio.  The  progress  of  Van 
Dyck  was  remarkable  even  in  surroundings  which  lent 
every  encouragement  to  the  practice  of  the  Fine  Arts,  as 
part  of  a  liberal  education.  In  161 3,  at  the  age  of  four- 
teen, he  painted  a  portrait  of  an  old  man,  which  was 
exhibited  at  the  Brussels  International  Exhibition  of  19 10, 
in  the  Pare  du  Cinquantenaire  Exhibition,  and  showed  an 
advanced  technical  proficiency  which  helps  to  explain  the 
rapid  maturity  of  his  genius  during  the  next  few  years. 

Two  years  later  he  appears  to  have  left  Van  Balen's 
school,  and  to  have  been  working  on  his  own  account  in  a 
residence  of  his  own  in  the  Lange  Minderbroeder  Straet 
(now  Mutsaert  Straet)  at  Antwerp.  He  even  had  pupils, 
although  only  a  boy  of  sixteen.  The  productions  of  this 
nest  of  schoolboys,  as  they  might  be  called,  seem  first  to 
have  been  brought  to  notice  by  the  exhibition  of  a  series 
of Heads  of  the  Twelve  Apostles,  which  were  exhibited  in 
a  private  gallery  at  Antwerp,  and  attracted  the  notice  of 
8 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Rubens  and  other  artists.  Several  examples  of  these 
Heads  of  the  Apostles  exist.  They  are  evidently  care- 
fully studied  from  models,  the  young  artists  providing 
these  among  themselves,  the  members  of  their  families,  or 
the  regular  professional  models  used  in  the  school  of 
Rubens.  Van  Dyck  was  undoubtedly  the  inspiring  in- 
fluence, and  the  best  of  these  heads  can  be  attributed  to 
his  hand,  but  it  is  probable  that  he  was  far  from  being 
alone  in  this  youthful  atelier. 

It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  main  fact  which  in- 
fluenced Van  Dyck's  boyhood  was  the  return  of  Rubens 
to  Antwerp  in  1609,  his  appointment  as  court-painter  to 
the  regents,  Albert  and  Isabella,  his  marriage  with  Isabella 
Brant,  and  finally,  the  building  of  his  great  house  and 
atelier  on  the  land  near  the  Place  de  Meir,  which  he  pur- 
chased in  1 6 1 1 .  Commissions  poured  in  on  Rubens,  and 
it  was  necessary  for  him  to  construct  his  great  picture- 
manufactory  and  secure  the  services  of  the  best  working 
artists  to  form  his  staff.  As  court-painter  Rubens  was 
free  from  all  the  usual  regulations  imposed  on  artists  by 
the  Guild  of  St.  Luke.  He  was  not  bound  to  enter  his 
pupils  on  their  books,  and  it  may  be  readily  imagined  that 
the  teaching  of  boys  would  not  be  a  matter  of  interest  to 
him.  Assistants  he  wanted,  and  as  he  rapidly  monopo- 
lised the  whole  painting  industry  of  Antwerp,  there  was 
little  chance  for  a  young  artist  to  distinguish  himself,  or 
even  obtain  employment,  except  as  a  pupil  of  Rubens. 
He  thus  collected  in  his  atelier  all  the  rising  talent  of  the 
town,  Snyders,  Jordaens,  Erasmus  Quellyn,  Gaspar  de 

b  9 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Crayer,  Theodor  van  Thulden,  Abraham  van  Diepen- 
beck,  Justus  van  Egmont,  to  carry  out  his  great  designs. 
For  landscape  he  secured  the  services  of  Jan  Wildens, 
Lucas  van  Uden,  Jacob  Fouquier, as  well  as  his  faithful  com- 
panion Deodatus  del  Mont.  He  also  founded  and  super- 
vised a  school  of  engravers,  which  for  technical  skill  and 
picturesque  interpretation  has  remained  unrivalled  to  this 
day.  It  would  not  have  been  impossible  for  him  to  have 
overlooked  Anthony  Van  Dyck,  even  if  the  young 
painter  had  to  wait  his  turn  for  admission,  seeing  that  as 
early  as  1 6 1 1  Rubens  himself  speaks  of  young  men  who 
have  to  remain  for  a  year  or  more  with  other  painters 
while  waiting  for  a  vacancy  in  his  studio.  He  was  even 
obliged  to  tell  Nicolas  Rockox,  the  influential  burgo- 
master, that  he  had  to  refuse  more  than  a  hundred,  among 
them  some  belonging  to  his  own  and  his  wife's  family. 

Nicolas  Rockox,  the  burgomaster,  seems  to  have  been 
acquainted  with  the  young  Van  Dyck,  who  painted  more 
than  one  portrait  of  him.  It  may  also  be  assumed  that  the 
youth  had  access  to  the  rich  gallery  of  pictures  and  works 
of  art  formed  by  another  wealthy  amateur,  Cornells  van 
der  Geest,  whose  portrait  by  Van  Dyck,  now  in  the 
National  Gallery,  is  among  the  most  remarkable  and 
withal  one  of  the  earliest  of  Van  Dyck's  paintings.  It  was 
this  Van  der  Geest  who  gave  Rubens  the  commission  for 
the  great  Elevation  of  the  Cross,  erected  in  the  Church  of 
St.  Walburga  in  Antwerp  in  1 6 1 1 .  Van  Dyck  can  hardly 
have  failed  to  be  present  at  the  unveiling  of  this  picture, 
and  in  the  following  year  of  that  even  greater  work  the 

10 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Descent  from  the  Cross ,  painted  for  the  Guild  of  Archers, 
of  which  Rockox  was  president,  and  hung  in  the  great 
Cathedral  on  the  wall  of  the  south  transept,  where  it  has 
remained  to  this  day  as  one  of  the  accepted  monuments 
of  painting.  A  susceptible  nature  like  that  of  Van  Dyck, 
so  ready  to  appropriate  and  assimilate  suggestions  from 
outside,  must  surely  have  been  affected,  even  at  the  early 
age  of  twelve  or  thirteen,  by  the  contemplation  of  those 
great  works.  From  these  earliest  days  no  doubt  Van  Dyck 
felt  the  power  and  entertained  the  ambition  to  become  a 
rival  to  the  mighty  Rubens  on  his  own  ground.  Mean- 
while there  was  nothing  for  a  young  artist  to  do  but  accept 
the  situation,  seeing  that  no  one  at  Antwerp,  as  may  be 
believed,  could  have  eyes  or  ears,  or  even  purses,  for  any- 
thing but  Rubens.  There  was  no  need  for  pioneer  work, 
even  if  such  had  been  possible.  The  air  was  replete  with 
formulas,  some  borrowed  from  the  academical  schools  of 
Italy,  some  emanating  from  the  creative  brain  of  Rubens 
himself.  A  young  student  only  needed  to  help  himself 
by  regular  work  and  an  intelligent  selection  from  the 
copious  material  for  the  Fine  Arts,  which  was  ready  to 
his  hand.  This  explains  in  some  way  the  extraordinary 
precocity  of  Van  Dyck,  and  why  at  the  age  of  fourteen 
or  fifteen,  at  which  Rubens  himself  had  been  studying  the 
first  rudiments  of  painting,  Van  Dyck  was  already  a  com- 
plete artist  on  his  own  account.  There  is  no  certainty  of 
the  exact  date  at  which  Van  Dyck  became  an  assistant 
(allievo)  in  the  atelier  of  Rubens.  It  was  probably  not 
before  February  1618,  when  Van  Dyck  was  admitted  to 

11 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

the  freedom  of  the  Guild  of  St.  Luke,  an  unprecedented 
distinction  for  his  age,  followed  soon  after  by  his  admis- 
sion, through  his  father,  to  the  full  rights  of  a  citizen  of 
Antwerp. 

During  the  few  years  that  Van  Dyck  spent  under 
Rubens  his  paintings,  so  far  as  they  can  be  identified  apart 
from  those  of  his  master,  are  all  in  the  manner  and  on  the 
model  of  Rubens.  Modern  critics  and  experts  have  striven 
to  separate  from  a  number  of  doubtful  works  those  which 
can  safely  be  attributed  to  Van  Dyck's  own  hand.  The 
occupation  is  fascinating,  if  rather  futile  in  some  instances, 
and  requires  all  the  technical  knowledge  and  comparative 
experience  possessed  by  such  experts  as  Wilhelm  Bode, 
Claude  Phillips,  or  Max  Rooses.  It  will  be  sufficient  here 
to  assert  that  at  this  period  of  his  career  Van  Dyck,  like 
his  fellow-assistants  in  the  atelier  of  Rubens,  had  no 
artistic  existence  outside  Rubens,  except  in  portraiture. 
Rubens,  as  is  well  known,  maintained  a  picture-factory  in 
his  great  house.  He  had  his  own  studio,  a  sacred  shrine 
to  which  few  were  allowed  to  penetrate,  and  one  or  more 
large  workshops  in  which  his  assistants  worked,  drawing 
from  the  collection  of  antique  marbles  or  working  out  the 
master's  designs  in  large  cartoons,  transferring  them  to 
canvas,  laying  in  all  that  the  master  felt  could  be  safely 
entrusted  to  their  hands  before  he  gave  the  canvas  his  final 
touches,  or  in  some  cases  making  a  direct  copy  or  a  skilful 
imitation  of  his  style.  For  each  grade  of  picture  manufac- 
ture Rubens  had  a  fixed  scale  of  payment.  His  assistants 
were  carefully  selected  and  ranked  according  to  their  skill. 

12 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Some,  such  as  Jordaens,and  De  Crayer,  attained  eminence 
afterwards  ;  others,  such  as  Van  Thulden,  Van  der 
Hoecke,  Quellyn,  remained  nothing  but  skilful,  if  second- 
rate,  repeaters  of  their  master's  ideas.  Among  the  workers 
in  the  atelier  Anthony  Van  Dyck  was  already  accorded 
pre-eminence  for  his  skill.  There  is  no  need  to  doubt  the 
oft-told  tale,  how  while  Rubens  was  out  one  day  for  his 
daily  ride  by  the  river,  his  assistants  got  access  to  his 
private  studio  ;  there  one  of  them,  Van  Diepenbeck, 
according  to  tradition,  slightly  damaged  an  unfinished 
painting.  Panic-stricken  at  the  thought  of  their  master's 
anger,  their  only  hope  lay  in  the  skill  of  Van  Dyck  to 
repair  the  damage.  The  incident  was  at  once  remarked 
by  Rubens,  who,  however,  was  quite  satisfied  with  what 
Van  Dyck  had  done  to  the  picture. 

Some  of  the  earlier  paintings  by  Van  Dyck  seem  to 
have  been  painted  before  he  actually  entered  the  atelier  of 
Rubens.  They  illustrate  the  inexperience  of  youth  when 
coping  with  the  formulas  of  mature  genius.  During  the 
two  years  or  so  spent  under  Rubens  himself  Van  Dyck's 
style  shows  a  great  advance  to  maturity.  It  was  not  only 
Rubens  himself,  but  the  treasures  of  art  collected  by 
Rubens,Van  der  Geest  and  others,  to  whose  collections  Van 
Dyck  had  access,  which  instilled  the  greatness  of  art  into 
the  mind  of  the  young  painter.  Rubens  during  his  long 
stay  in  Italy,  at  Venice,  Mantua  and  Genoa,  had  learnt  to 
appreciate  the  greatworks  of  the  Venetian  school,  and  had 
shaken  off  the  tyranny  of  the  academical  schools  at  Rome 
and  at  Bologna,  which  had  been  sapping  the  virility  of 

13 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

northern  artists.  Rubens  brought  back  with  him  paint- 
ings by  Titian,  Tintoretto  and  Paolo  Veronese,  which 
opened  out  to  Van  Dyck  a  new  world  to  be  explored. 
The  influence  of  Titian  on  Van  Dyck  is  evident  before  he 
went  to  Italy  himself.  This  is  specially  evident  in  his 
treatment  of  the  nude.  As  an  assistant  to  Rubens  Van 
Dyck  had  necessarily  to  deal  with  the  rendering  of  the 
nude  body,  in  which  Rubens  took  a  perhaps  over-exu- 
berant interest,  and  exercised  an  unrivalled  and  inimitable 
skill.  Van  Dyck,  on  the  other  hand,  showed  a  sensitive 
shrinking  from  the  kind  of  nudity  in  which  his  master 
revelled.  The  glowing  masses  of  colour  with  which 
Titian  treated  his  renderings  of  the  nude  body  were  much 
more  sympathetic  to  the  young  Van  Dyck,  who  showed 
even  at  this  early  age  a  marked  preference  for  the  idealised 
sensualism  of  the  Venetian  nude  over  the  frank  realism 
and  grossness  of  the  Flemish. 

Anthony  Van  Dyck  was,  however,  no  cage-bird. 
The  feathers  were  fast  growing  and  gathering  strength  on 
the  wing,  which  were  to  bear  him  like  a  bird  into  the 
empyrean  air.  No  one,  not  even  Rubens  himself,  could 
expect  this  brilliant,  already  famous  youth,  to  be  con- 
tented with  drawing  cartoons  for  engravers,  or  tapestry 
works,  or  taking  the  lion's  share  in  the  great  commissions 
for  which  Rubens  took  the  credit.  The  change  was  soon 
to  come. 


14 


CHAPTER    II 

A  CHARMING  portrait  preserved  in  the  Academy 
of  Fine  Arts  at  Vienna  gives  a  good  representa- 
tion of  Van  Dyck  in  his  youth.  It  is  evidently 
painted  by  himself.  The  boy,  for  he  seems  little  more, 
looks  out  over  his  right  shoulder.  He  has  large  observant 
eyes,  a  delicately  shaped  nose  and  chin,  and  full,  rather 
sensual  lips,  with  a  touch  of  raillery  in  his  expression. 
Silken  auburn  hair  falls  in  studied  negligence  over  his  ears 
and  forehead.  The  same  features  appear  in  the  portraits 
of  himself  a  few  years  later,  only  the  expression  is  more 
sedate  and  self-conscious,  the  hair  more  elaborately  ar- 
ranged, and  his  long  slender  hands,  so  remarkable  for  their 
elegance,  introduced  into  the  portrait.  Were  the  por- 
traits anonymous,  it  would  be  asked  who  this  youthful 
genius  can  be. 

Portrait-painting  at  Antwerp  had  for  long  been  one 
of  the  most  successful  and  profitable  branches  of  art. 
Antwerp  portrait-painters  had  found  their  way  to  England 
and  other  countries,  there  being  such  a  glut  of  talent  in 
Antwerp  before  the  Spanish  troubles  that  the  city  could 
afford  to  give  of  its  best  to  others.  The  early  traditions 
of  the  Antwerp  School  still  held  their  ground,  and  their 
somewhat  stiff  formalism  had  found  reinforced  strength 

15 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

in  the  rich  court  costumes  and  armour  which  had  been 
introduced  by  the  Hapsburg  and  Burgundian  rulers.  The 
more  sober  habits  of  the  Netherlander,  especially  since 
the  advent  of  the  reformed  religion,  were  antagonistic  to 
the  ruling  fashions  of  display,  and  were  for  a  time  swept 
away  by  the  religious  wars,  which  in  their  time  produced 
a  reaction.  Two  painters  then  struck  out  somewhat  new 
lines  of  their  own — Rubens  and  Cornelis  de  Vos.  Rubens 
was  never  a  portrait-painter  in  the  restricted  use  of  the 
name.  Great  works  as  some  of  his  portraits  are,  they  are 
rather  decorative  paintings  than  mere  portraits,  and  the 
effect  of  the  whole  picture  was  more  of  an  object  to  the 
painter  than  the  delineation  of  the  sitter's  character.  Cor- 
nelis de  Vos  carried  on  some  of  the  traditions  of  the  old 
school,  but  with  surprising  success.  If  it  be  difficult  to 
separate  the  work  of  Van  Dyck  from  that  of  Rubens  in 
history-painting,  it  seems  sometimes  as  difficult  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  work  of  Van  Dyck  and  that  of  the 
older  painter,  Cornelis  de  Vos.  In  his  earliest  portraits 
Van  Dyck  gives  evidence  of  his  particular  skill  in  this 
branch  of  art,  and  of  the  laborious  industry  with  which 
this  skill  was  obtained.  The  portraits  seem  to  be  elabo- 
rately and  carefully  constructed,  built  up  and  modelled  to 
the  extreme  point  of  academical  precision,  as  in  the  case 
of  the  famous  portrait  of  Cornelis  Van  der  Geest  in  the 
National  Gallery.  They  lack  as  yet  the  individuality  of 
style,  the  direct  assuredness,  the  strong  personal  expres- 
sion of  the  artist  himself,  which  are  so  characteristic  of 
Van  Dycks  later  work.     The  subjects  appear  to  be  the 

16 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

prosperous  citizens  of  Antwerp  with  their  wives  as  they 
really  were,  and  not  the  false  aristocracy  of  a  later  date. 
Children  are  painted  with  delightful  humour,  and  one  or 
two  of  the  family  groups  of  this  early  date  are  hardly  to  be 
surpassed.  The  ladies  wear  the  short,  close  head-gear, 
with  the  tight-fitting  caps,  so  unbecoming  in  art,  and 
the  large  wheel  ruffs,  then  in  vogue.  So  difficult  is  it  in 
many  cases  to  distinguish  the  style  of  Van  Dyck  from  his 
contemporaries,  that  one  doubts,  when  the  painting  is  the 
salient  object  of  interest,  if  the  portrait  be  not  by  Rubens ; 
if  the  veracity  and  uncompromising  directness  of  the  like- 
ness be  the  more  obvious,  if  the  portrait  be  not  by  Cor- 
nelis  de  Vos;  and  if  a  certain  robustness  and  coarse  vigour 
be  shown,  if  the  portrait  should  not  be  given  to  Van 
Dyck's  contemporary,  Jacob  Jordaens,  whose  style  as  a 
portrait-painter  was  more  akin  to  that  of  Rubens. 

Van  Dyck  was  not  long  to  remain  a  mere  working 
assistant  in  Rubens's  studio.  Traditional  gossip  will  have 
it  that  Rubens  was  jealous  of  the  young  artist's  growing 
reputation,  and  advised  him  to  confine  himself  to  por- 
traits, and  also  that  Isabella  Brant,  the  first  wife  of  Rubens, 
looked  with  too  kindly  eyes  on  the  attractive  young  Van 
Dyck.  There  is  no  need  to  credit  either  rumour,  for  the 
relations  between  Rubens  and  Van  Dyck  seem  always  to 
have  been  most  cordial,  and  governed  by  mutual  appre- 
ciation of  each  other's  great  excellences.  If  Isabella 
Brant  singled  out  the  handsome  young  painter  for  special 
attention,  she  was  only  doing  what  other  great  ladies 
were  charged  with  doing  in  after-days,  the  haughty  dames 
c  17 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

of  Genoa,  the  sprightly  ladies  at  Whitehall,  nay  !   even 
the  queen,  Henrietta  Maria,  herself. 

Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Arundel,  seems  to  have 
been  the  chief  agent  in  the  change  of  life  for  Anthony  Van 
Dyck.  It  appears  that  the  Countess  of  Arundel  visited 
Antwerp  in  June  1620,  and  sat  to  Rubens  for  the  group, 
now  in  the  Munich  Gallery,  which  shows  the  countess 
sitting  with  her  dog,  her  dwarf,  her  servant  ;  the  portrait 
of  her  husband  in  the  background  was  a  subsequent  ad- 
dition. This  portrait  of  the  Countess  of  Arundel  is,  how- 
ever, so  closely  related  to  that  of  Anne  of  Austria,  which 
was  painted  by  Rubens  in  Paris  a  few  years  later,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  believe  that  this  actual  Arundel  group  could 
have  been  painted  at  Antwerp  as  early  as  1620.  There  is  no 
positive  evidence  that  the  Earl  of  Arundel  was  in  the  Nether- 
lands in  16  20,  but  the  countess  was  taking  her  sons  to  Italy 
for  their  education,  and  stopped  at  Antwerp  on  the  way. 
The  earl  himself  was  in  England  most  of  the  time  between 
1 6 1 5  and  1630.  Arundel  was  at  the  time  busily  engaged 
on  the  formation  of  his  great  art  collections,  which  he  was 
accomplishing  through  his  agents  on  the  Continent, 
one  of  the  principal  of  whom  was  Sir  Dudley  Carleton, 
Ambassador  at  the  Hague  from  1615  to  1625.  Arundel, 
while  collecting  pictures  and  works  of  art  for  himself, 
was  anxious  to  promote  a  school  of  painters  in  London. 
Native  talent  was  at  this  date  quite  wanting,  such  as  did 
exist  being  but  servile  copies  of  the  leading  painters  im- 
ported from  abroad.  The  virile  influence  of  Antonio 
Moro,  and  the  more  courtly  style  of  the  younger  Pourbus 

18 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

and  Sanchez  Coello, had  given  place  to  the  fashion  for  por- 
traits illustrating  the  extravagant  costumes  which  had 
been  introduced  into  the  Netherlands  as  already  stated, 
and  into  England  by  the  prevailing  fashion  of  copying 
everything  foreign,  especially  the  French.  Antwerp  had 
already  supplied  painters  in  this  style,  such  as  Paul  van 
Somer  and  Blyenberg.  Van  Somer,  however,  was  dead, 
and  Arundel  had  already  persuaded  Daniel  Mytens  to 
come  over  from  The  Hague,  not  having  been  successful 
with  Michiel  JanszvanMiereveldt,who  seems  to  have  been 
looked  on  as  the  chief  portrait-painter  there,  and  the  head 
of  too  flourishing  a  portrait-manufactory  to  wish  to  change 
his  quarters. 

The  Countess  of  Arundel  no  doubt  told  her  husband 
of  the  fame  already  enjoyed  by  the  young  Van  Dyck,  and 
his  attractive  personality.  Negotiations  were  opened  for 
his  entering  the  service  of  King  James  I.  Van  Dyck  does 
not,  however,  seem  to  have  been  easy  to  persuade.  In  July 
1620  he  had  not  yielded  to  Arundel's  request,  for  one  of 
Lady  Arundel's  suite  wrote  to  tell  Arundel  that  Van 
Dyck  was  still  with  Rubens,  that  his  works  were  valued 
at  very  much  less  than  those  of  his  master's,  that  he  was 
only  twenty-one,  with  very  rich  parents,  and  that  it  was 
difficult  to  persuade  him  to  leave  Antwerp.  In  Novem- 
ber, however,  Sir  Toby  Matthew  writes  from  Antwerp  to 
Sir  Dudley  Carleton,  that  Van  Dyck  had  gone  to  England, 
and  that  the  king  had  given  him  an  annual  pension  of  one 
hundred  pounds.  Matthew  seems  himself  to  have  looked 
upon  Van  Dyck  as  a  difficult  person  to  deal  with. 

19 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

The  state  of  the  Fine  Arts  in  England  during  the 
early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  left  a  great  deal  to 
be  desired.  The  ground  was  good,  and  the  material  at 
hand,  but  there  was  a  great  lack  of  some  predominant 
style  and  of  natural  expression.  Architecture,  especially 
domestic  architecture,  was  very  flourishing,  and  was  in 
the  act  of  producing  Inigo  Jones.  Some  of  the  minor 
arts  were  in  a  healthy  state,  but  painting  and  sculpture, 
as  decorative  work,  had  not  shaken  off  the  baleful  influ- 
ence of  the  decaying  Renaissance.  Portrait-painting  had 
been  very  prosperous,  but  had  reduced  itself  to  a  craft. 
A  new  spirit  was,  however,  in  the  air,  of  which  Arundel 
was  the  chief  exponent.  Buckingham  sought  to  rival 
Arundel  as  an  art-patron  and  collector,  and  in  this,  as  in 
his  statesmanship,  proved  himself  to  be  but  a  magnificent 
fraud.  James  I.  was  not  really  a  lover  of  art,  and  the  re- 
markable qualities  shown  by  both  his  sons,  Henry  and 
Charles,  can  hardly  have  been  derived  from  James  or  his 
Stuart  ancestors,  except  for  the  French  influence,  which 
may  have  been  brought  into  Scotland  by  Mary,  Queen  of 
Scots.  The  king's  idea  of  a  court-painter  was  probably 
confined  to  that  of  a  sergeant-painter  [pic tor  serviens), 
who  had  existed  as  a  kind  of  court  official  for  generations, 
called  upon  to  paint  the  royal  barge,  or  such  menial  duties, 
or  to  paint  and  provide,  in  as  many  repetitions  as  might 
be  required,  signboard  effigies  of  the  sovereigns  and  their 
family.  A  painter  like  Van  Dyck,  already  spoilt  by  the 
caresses  of  fame,  accustomed  to  the  exuberant  magnifi- 
cence of  the  Rubens  school,  may  well  have  found  himself 

20 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

out  of  place  at  the  Court  of  St.  James.  He  did  not  take 
long  to  make  up  his  mind.  On  February  16,  1 620/1,  he 
was  paid  the  sum  of  c  one  hundred  pounds  by  way  of 
reward  for  speciall  service  by  him  performed  for  his 
Majestie,  without  accompt  imprest  or  other  charge  to  be 
sett  uppon  him  for  the  same  or  for  anie  part  thereof.' 
This  was  a  remarkable  payment  for  so  young  a  painter, 
who  could  not  have  been  above  three  months  in  the  king's 
service.  It  is  even  more  remarkable  that  no  record  of  this 
special  service  exists  ;  the  only  works  of  Van  Dyck  which 
can  have  been  done  in  England  at  this  date  being  the  full- 
length  portraits  at  Windsor  Castle  of  James  I.,  copied,  as 
is  stated,  from  a  miniature  by  Hilliard,  and  of  his  deceased 
son  Henry,  Prince  of  Wales,  a  copy  from  an  earlier  por- 
trait by  Paul  van  Somer.  If  these  were  the  duties  of  a 
court-painter  to  King  James,  and  they  seem  to  have  been 
imposed  on  and  accepted  by  Daniel  Mytens,  Van  Dyck 
may  be  pardoned  for  determining  to  throw  up  his  post  in 
the  royal  service,  and  go  on  a  period  of  travel  oxWcmder- 
jahre  on  the  Continent,  as  Rubens  had  done  before  him. 
In  this  he  seems  to  have  been  supported  by  Arundel,  who 
obtained  from  the  king  and  the  great  officers  of  theHouse- 
hold,  c  a  passe  for  Anthoine  Van  Dyck,  gent,  his  Matles 
servaunt  to  travaile  for  8  months  he  havinge  obtayned  his 
Matlcs  leaue  in  that  behalf  as  was  sygnifyed  by  the  E.  of 
Arundell.'  This  was  on  February  28,  1 620/1.  Soon  after 
that  date  Van  Dyck  was  back  at  Antwerp. 

For  the  next  lew  months  it  is  uncertain  upon  what  Van 
Dyck  was  engaged.   It  seems  hardly  probable  that  a  man 

21 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

who  had  been,  and  was  in  fact  still  court-painter  to  a  king, 
who  had  returned  home  with  gold  in  his  pocket  and  a  gold 
chain  round  his  neck,  should  be  content  to  resume  his 
place  among  his  former  comrades  in  the  atelier  of  Rubens. 
His  leave,  however,  was  granted  distinctly  for  purposes  of 
travel.  There  is,  however,  no  actual  trace  of  his  having 
been  away  from  Antwerp  during  these  few  months.  There 
are  certain  paintings  by  Van  Dyck,  which  show  most 
strongly  the  influence  of  Titian,  and  yet  clearly  belong  to 
the  early  period  of  his  life,  while  working  with  Rubens. 
Among  these  are  the  Mocking  of  Christ,  the  Betrayal  of 
Christ,  and  the  St.  Martin,  Each  of  those  can  be  traced 
to  studies  after  Titian,  jotted  down  by  Van  Dyck  in  his 
famous  Sketch-Book  at  Chatsworth.  It  has  usually  been 
assumed,  and  with  more  obvious  probability,  that  this 
Sketch-Book  was  not  begun  by  Van  Dyck  until  he  had 
reached  Italy.  Rubens  had,  however,  accumulated  many 
fine  works  by  Titian,  Tintoretto,  and  other  Venetian 
painters  in  his  house,  to  which  Van  Dyck  without  doubt 
had  access.  Rubens  had  copied  and  adapted  himself 
Titian's  painting  of  the  '  Crowning  with  Thorns.'  It 
is  possible,  therefore,  that  Van  Dyck  may  have  devoted 
himself  to  the  study  of  these  paintings  in  Rubens's  time, 
and  made  himself  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  tech- 
nique of  Titian  before  he  actually  went  to  Italy.  This 
seems  the  more  possible  seeing  that  Rubens  was  the  actual 
owner  of  Van  Dyck's  Betrayal  of  Christ,  and  the 
Mocking  of  Christ,  which  were  sold  after  his  death  in 
1 64 1,  and  purchased  for  King  Philip  IV.  of  Spain,  where 

22 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

they  now  are  in  the  Prado  Gallery  at  Madrid.  The  ver- 
sions owned  by  Rubens  were  repetitions  ordered  by  him 
from  Van  Dyck  of  paintings  executed  for  the  Abbey  at 
Bruges.  The  St.  Martin  at  Windsor  Castle,  which 
also  came  from  Spain,  is  possibly  also  identical  with 
one  owned  by  Rubens.  It  is  important  also  to  remember 
that  a  former  regent  of  the  Netherlands,  Mary  of  Austria, 
Queen  of  Hungary,  sister  of  Charles  V.,  had  been  a  great 
admirer  of  the  paintings  by  Titian,  and  had  collected 
some  twenty  or  more  paintings  by  him,  in  her  palace  at 
Brussels,  or  in  her  summer  residences  in  the  Nether- 
lands. These  comprised  some  important  pictures,  in- 
cluding the  portraits  painted  by  Titian  of  the  royal 
personages  assembled  at  Augsburg  in  1548,  such  as  the 
famous c  Charles  V.  at  the  Battle  of  Muhlberg,'  with  which 
Van  Dyck  was  certainly  acquainted,  the  '  Sisyphus '  and 
'  Prometheus,'  and  the  '  Noli  me  Tangere,'  a  fragment  of 
which  only  exists  in  the  Prado  at  Madrid,  the  whole 
composition  being  recorded  in  Van  Dyck's  Sketch-Book 
at  Chatsworth.  One  may  therefore  be  led  to  assume  that 
the  study  of  Titian,  which  this  Sketch-Book  proves,  must 
have  begun  before  Van  Dyck  left  for  Italy. 

This  step  was  no  doubt  recommended  and  encouraged 
by  Rubens.  Rubens  himself  had  gone  to  Italy  twenty 
years  before  to  study  rather  than  to  practise  painting. 
Going  straight  to  Venice  in  1600  he  had  encountered 
the  young  Vincenzo  Gonzaga,  Duke  of  Mantua,who  took 
the  painter  into  his  service,  and  maintained  him  in 
personal  service  to  himself  at  Mantua,  and  on  visits  to 

23 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Florence  and  Rome.  Rubens  had  also  been  sent  by  the 
Duke  on  a  mission  to  Madrid.  Finally,  Rubens  had 
followed  his  master  to  Genoa,  where  the  news  of  his 
mother's  dangerous  state  of  health  had  given  him  an  ex- 
cuse for  breaking  his  chains.  Van  Dyck  would  naturally 
wish  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  Rubens  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, although  it  may  be  doubted  if  Rubens's  own  experi- 
ence of  the  Gonzaga  patronage  would  have  encouraged 
him  to  advise  his  young  friend  to  seek  to  secure  the  same. 
Anyhow,  Rubens  gave  Van  Dyck  his  best  encouragement, 
and  one  of  the  best  horses  in  his  stables,  no  small  gift,  as 
Rubens  was  dependent  for  health  on  his  daily  ride  and  the 
quality  of  his  mounts.  An  Italian  friend  of  Rubens, 
Cavaliere  Giovanni  Battista  Nani,  was  returning  to  Italy, 
and  in  his  company  Anthony  Van  Dyck  started  on 
October  3,  162 1,  reaching  Genoa  on  November  21  fol- 
lowing. The  eight  months'  leave  for  travel,  granted  by 
King  James  I.,  seems  to  have  been  entirely  forgotten. 

A  pretty  legend,  by  no  means  inconsistent  with  what 
is  known  of  Van  Dyck's  temperament,  has  invested  a 
painting  of  St.  Martin  in  the  church  at  Saventhem  near 
Brussels  with  romantic  interest.  The  tale  of  Van  Dyck's 
delay  on  his  journey  to  Italy  for  love  of  the  fair  maiden  of 
Saventhem  has  been  disproved  by  the  remorseless  evi- 
dence of  facts  as  to  the  actual  date  of  acquisition  of  this 
picture  by  the  Church  of  Saventhem  from  the  Seigneur  de 
Boisschot,  a  patron  of  Van  Dyck.  This  St.  Martin,  and 
the  more  important  version  of  the  same  composition  at 
Windsor  Castle,  are  unmistakably  based,  so  far  as  the 

24 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

central  figure  is  concerned,  on  Titian's  great  woodcut  of 
'Pharaoh  in  theRed  Sea,' details  from  which  are  to  be  found 
in  the  Chatsworth  Sketch-Book,  and  which  is  very  likely 
to  have  been  found  among  the  objects  of  art  brought 
back  by  Rubens  from  Italy.  If  we  may  assume  that  the 
notes  from  Titian  were  begun  by  Van  Dyck  before  he 
went  to  Italy,  and  that  he  spent  some  time  at  Brussels 
studying  the  paintings  by  Titian  in  the  regent's  palaces, 
there  may  be  some  foundation  for  a  more  romantic  cause 
of  his  delay  in  starting  on  his  travels. 

There  was  more  than  one  reason  for  Van  Dyck  select- 
ing Genoa  as  his  first  goal  in  Italy.  Genoa  was  one  of 
the  most  important  cities  in  Europe  at  this  date.  It  was 
an  independent  State,  governed  by  an  oligarchy  of  great 
ruling  families,  chief  among  which  was  that  of  Doria.  As  a 
seaport  and  mercantile  city,  Genoa  was  second  only  to 
Venice,  but  even  more  than  Venice  it  was  the  chief  port 
or  clearing-house  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  and  the  prin- 
cipal gate  of  access  between  Spain  and  the  German  pro- 
vinces, including  the  Netherlands,  which  formed  the 
great  Empire  of  the  Hapsburgs.  Unlike  Venice,  however, 
Genoa  had  produced  no  native  school  of  artists,  and  was 
dependent  on  importations  from  outside  to  supply  the 
demands  for  such  a  luxury.  The  short  sojourn  of  Rubens 
at  Genoa  in  1608  seems  to  have  opened  out  to  Flemish 
artists  an  unoccupied  field  for  activity.  Through  this  Van 
Dyck  found  a  personal  reason  for  going  straight  to  Genoa. 
Among  the  Flemish  artists  already  settled  or  beginning  to 
form  a  circle  there,  were  the  brothers  Cornelis  and  Lucas 

d  25 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

de  Wael,  in  whose  house  at  or  near  Genoa  the  new  arrival 
from  Antwerp  naturally  found  a  hearty  welcome. 

The  brothers  De  Wael  were  a  few  years  senior  in  age 
to  Van  Dyck.  Their  parents,  Lucas  de  Wael  and  Ger- 
trude de  Jode,  were  friends  of  Van  Dyck's  family,  and 
were  portrayed  by  Van  Dyck  in  one  of  his  finest  double 
portraits,  now  at  Munich.  Through  their  mother  the 
De  Waels  were  nephews  to  Jan,  or  c  Velvet,'  Brueghel, 
and  to  Pieter  de  Jode,  the  engraver.  Van  Dyck  painted 
the  two  De  Waels  in  a  double  portrait,  now  in  the 
gallery  of  the  Capitol  at  Rome,  where  also  is  a  similar 
double  portrait  of  Pieter  de  Jode  and  his  son,  both  noted 
as  engravers.  These  two  companion  paintings  were  both 
in  the  same  private  collection  at  Antwerp  in  1692.  Jan 
Brueghel,  the  younger,  Van  Dyck's  early  friend,  had  pre- 
ceded, or  accompanied  him,  to  Genoa.  Two  other  com- 
patriots, Jan  Roos  and  Michael  of  Antwerp,  were  also 
there.      Anthony  Van  Dyck  was  not  among  strangers. 

In  dividing  Van  Dyck's  career  into  periods,  sharply 
defined  as  they  came  to  be,  it  is  necessary  to  avoid  any 
idea  of  a  sudden  change  in  style.  Van  Dyck  was  ardent, 
acquisitive,  assimilative  in  his  temperament,  but  it  re- 
quired time  and  industry  to  mould  these  qualities  into 
a  great  style  of  his  own.  If  it  may  be  assumed  that  he 
came  to  Italy,  already  profoundly  influenced  not  only 
by  the  work  of  Rubens,  but  also  by  that  of  Titian  and 
Tintoretto,  there  will  be  no  difficulty  in  imagining  the 
young  painter  as  simply  continuing  his  progressive  work 
at  Genoa,  only  under  the  influence  of  a  warmer  and  more 

26 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

passionate  atmosphere.  A  certain  number  of  history- 
paintings,  sacred  or  mythological,  as  well  as  portraits,  in 
which  the  combined  influence  of  Rubens  and  Titian  ap- 
pears infused  by  the  ardour  and  enthusiasm  of  youth, 
seem  to  belong  to  the  period  of  his  first  stay  at  Genoa, 
a  few  short  months  only  before  the  painter  started  on  his 
journey  to  study,  rather  than  to  practise,  painting  at 
Venice  and  at  Rome. 

In  February  1622  Anthony  Van  Dyck — Signor 
Antonio,  as  he  now  liked  to  call  himself — left  Genoa  and 
went  by  sea  to  Rome.  In  the  Eternal  City  he  was  sure 
of  patronage  from  Cardinal  Guido  Bentivoglio,  who  had 
spent  some  years  as  Papal  Legate  in  Flanders  and  written 
a  history  of  the  Netherlands.  Van  Dyck,  however,  did 
not  linger  at  Rome,  but  started  north  in  the  direction  of 
Venice.  On  the  way  he  stopped  at  Florence  and  was 
greeted  by  his  old  friend  Justus  Suttermans,  now  court- 
painter  to  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  who  had  been 
entered  as  a  boy  on  the  lists  of  the  Guild  of  St.  Luke  at 
Antwerp  the  same  day  as  Van  Dyck.  It  is  interesting  to 
note  the  difference  in  the  development  of  the  two  painters 
who  thus  started  on  their  careers  on  the  same  day. 
Suttermans  found  an  early  home  with  the  Medici  princes, 
and  what  we  know  of  their  personality  is  largely  due 
to  the  straightforward  skill  of  their  painter.  Sutter- 
mans, however,  had  little  imagination,  and  remained  an 
Antwerp  painter  to  the  last,  partly  influenced  by  his 
surroundings,  a  survivor  rather  than  a  pioneer.  He  has 
in  consequence  remained  an  unheeded,  too  little  appreci- 

27 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

ated  figure  in  art,  while  his  former  boy-friend  soared  into 
the  empyrean.  At  Florence  also  Van  Dyck  may  have 
met  a  man  who  was  to  have  eventually  a  profound  influ- 
ence on  his  life,  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  the  Don  Quixote  of 
English  nobility.  From  Florence  he  passed  to  Bologna, 
and  visited  the  great  academical  schools  of  the  Carracci 
and  Guido  Reni.  Eventually  he  arrived  at  Venice. 
Whether  it  was  by  chance  or  design,  Van  Dyck  found 
resident  in  a  villa  near  Venice,  on  the  mainland,  a  former 
friend  in  Alethea,  Countess  of  Arundel.  It  is  very  pro- 
bable that  Van  Dyck  was  taken  under  her  patronage, 
perhaps  under  her  roof.  Although  he  spent  some  time 
at  Venice,  he  has  left  no  drawings  of  the  place,  no  por- 
traits of  its  great  citizens,  nothing  but  art-studies  from 
paintings  by  Titian,  Tintoretto,  and  Veronese  to  show 
how  he  occupied  his  time. 

The  Countess  of  Arundel  managed  to  get  herself  in- 
volved in  an  unfortunate  political  controversy  at  Venice, 
that  resulted  in  the  punishment  with  death  of  one  of  the 
leading  citizens,  Foscarini.  The  countess  considered 
herself  much  aggrieved  by  her  treatment,  and  vindicated 
herself  by  establishing  a  claim  for  redress  and  apology. 
Venice  was,  however,  no  longer  a  comfortable  place  for 
her,  and  she  decided  to  return  home.  Illness  prevented 
her  from  removing  at  once,  and  it  was  just  during  this 
period  that  Van  Dyck  was  living  at  Venice.  As  the 
countess  was  a  passionate  lover  and  omnivorous  collector 
of  pictures  and  works  of  art,  there  could  be  no  reason  for 
discrediting  the  story  that  she  invited  Van  Dyck  to  return 

28 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

with  her  to  England,  and  indeed  took  him  in  her  train  as 
far  as  Turin.  If  this  were  the  case,  the  lethargic  progress 
of  a  great  lady  and  her  suite,  encumbered  moreover  by 
waggon-loads  of  paintings,  statuary,  and  other  objects  ac- 
cumulated by  the  countess  on  her  travels,  would  have  en- 
abled Van  Dyck  to  visit  several  places  of  interest  en  route. 
Mantua  he  never  visited,  the  city  of  the  Gonzagas,  so 
intimately  connected  with  the  career  of  Rubens.  The 
Duke  Vincenzo,  the  patron  of  Rubens,  was  no  more,  and 
the  glory  of  the  Gonzaga  dynasty  was  fast  approaching 
its  close;  his  successor,  Duke  Ferdinando,  shunned  Man- 
tua and  resided  chiefly  at  Venice,  where  he  must  have  met 
and  known  Van  Dyck,  and  gave  him  the  heavy  gold  chain 
which  the  painter  so  proudly  displays  in  his  self-portrait 
at  Munich.  Mantua  therefore  offered  no  longer  the  same 
opportunities  for  patronage.  Van  Dyck  was  probably 
attached  to  the  service  of  Lady  Arundel,  and  may  have 
been  warned  by  Rubens  not  to  depend  too  much  on 
the  patronage  of  any  proud  and  wilful  master.  Across 
the  Lombard  plain  the  caravan  would  have  proceeded, 
probably  by  Parma  and  Piacenza,  towards  Turin.  At 
Parma  Van  Dyck  could  have  seen  the  marvellous  fres- 
coes by  Correggio,  still  fresh  in  their  original  beauty. 
Something  of  the  suavity  of  Correggio  can  sometimes  be 
detected  as  blending  with  the  influence  of  Rubens  and 
Titian  in  Van  Dyck's  sacred  pictures.  It  must  remain 
uncertain  if  the  painter  actually  accompanied  the  coun- 
tess as  far  as  Turin,  as  he  most  certainly  declined  her 
invitation  to  pay  a  second  visit  to  England. 

29 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Another  motive  may  have  determined  his  actions, 
may  even,  indeed,  have  necessitated  a  sudden  and  fleet- 
ing return  to  his  native  city.  On  December  i,  1622, 
Frans  Van  Dyck,  the  painter's  father,  died  at  Antwerp. 
From  a  register  of  the  Dominican  convent  at  Antwerp 
it  appears  that  Frans  Van  Dyck  had  been  nursed  and  be- 
friended by  the  nuns  of  this  convent  during  the  painter's 
absence,  and  that  on  his  deathbed  the  father  had  expressed 
a  wish  to  his  son  that  he  should  paint  an  altarpiece  for  the 
convent  chapel.  Does  this  record  denote  the  presence  of 
Anthony  Van  Dyck  at  his  father's  death-bed  ?  The  jour- 
ney from  Italy  to  Antwerp  was  a  matter  of  weeks  in  those 
days,  and  communication  by  letter  or  messenger  took 
nearly  as  long.  It  would  seem  more  probable  that  the 
father,  unable  to  see  his  brilliant  son  before  he  died,  left 
him  this  dying  request,  a  request  which  Van  Dyck  on  his 
subsequent  return  to  Antwerp  was  scrupulous  to  execute, 
as  denoted  by  the  inscription  on  the  great  altarpiece 
Christ  on  the  Cross  between  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Cathe- 
rine of  Siena  now  in  theMuseum  of  Fine  Arts  at  Antwerp. 
Rome  was  now  the  goal  of  Van  Dyck's  ambitions,  and 
early  in  1623  he  seems  to  have  been  settled  there.  As  a 
painter  required  powerful  patronage,  he  in  all  probability 
enjoyed  that  of  Cardinal  Bentivoglio,  of  whom  he  has  left 
that  marvellous  portrait,  now  in  the  Pitti  Palace  at  Flor- 
ence, one  of  the  great  pieces  of  painting  in  the  world  of 
art.  He  is  stated  to  have  painted  Cardinal  Barberini,  about 
to  succeed  to  the  Papacy  as  Urban  VIII. ,  and  this  portrait 
may  perhaps  be  traced  in  the  engraved  portrait  of  the 

30 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Pope  by  Van  Dyck's  friend  and  compatriot,  Lucas  Vors- 
terman.  Traces  of  his  Roman  visit  are  to  be  found  in  his 
Sketch-Book,  sketches  of  pictures  by  Titian,  of  the  famous 
antique  painting  in  the  Aldobrandini  palace,  now  in  the 
Vatican,  and  of  the  eccentric  Sir  Robert  Shirley,  ambas- 
sador from  the  Shah  of  Persia  to  Europe,  who  was  in  Rome 
in  1623,  and  who  with  his  Circassian  wife  sat  to  Van  Dyck 
for  their  portraits. 

Rome  was  not,  however,  a  congenial  atmosphere  for 
Van  Dyck.  The  clubs  and  cliques  of  artists,  native  and 
foreign,  congregated  in  Rome,  were  jealous  of  the  patron- 
age given  to  Van  Dyck,  and  of  his  social  success.  They 
criticised  his  pictures  unfavourably,  admired  in  some  cases 
his  colouring  as  superficially  good,  but  found  fault  with 
his  drawing.  Evidently  the  young  painter,  with  his  fine 
clothes,  his  gold  chain,  and  his  quick  temper,  made  him- 
self disliked  by  his  fellow-artists  at  Rome.  //  pittore 
cavalleresco  they  nicknamed  him.  Van  Dyck,  resenting 
their  attitude,  quitted  Rome  in  disgust  and  returned  to 
Genoa,  where  he  was  sure  to  receive  a  more  friendly 
welcome. 


3i 


CHAPTER    III 

SIGNOR  ANTONIO  was  resident  at  Genoa  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  next  five  years.  It  is  not 
certain  if  he  lived  in  the  house  of  his  friend, 
Cornelis  de  Wael,  on  the  sea-shore,  or  if  he  had  a  resi- 
dence of  his  own.  It  is  possible  to  trace  in  certain  por- 
traits the  identity  of  De  Wael  from  his  likeness  in  the 
double  portrait  at  the  Capitoline  Museum.  The  great 
equestrian  portrait,  shown  by  Messrs.  Agnew  at  the 
Brussels  Exhibition  of  1910,  as  well  as  a  full-length 
portrait  in  armour  belonging  to  the  Marquess  of  Linlith- 
gow, each  suggest  a  friendly  portrait  of  De  Wael  mas- 
querading in  the  dress  of  the  Genoese  nobility  ;  the 
likeness  may,  however,  be  misleading.  Here  at  Genoa, 
at  all  events,  Van  Dyck  was  on  congenial  soil.  Genoa 
itself  was  in  rather  a  perturbed  condition,  and  in  a  con- 
stant state  of  military  or  naval  activity.  This  had  re- 
tarded the  advance  of  the  Fine  Arts,  so  that  Van  Dyck 
found  himself  absolutely  without  a  rival  either  in  the 
present  or  the  past,  and  his  arrival  brought  a  new  de- 
velopment of  painting  into  Genoa  and  its  territory.  He 
was  now  a  fully  trained  and  consummate  artist,  with  the 
technique  of  Rubens  and  Titian  at  his  finger-ends,  and 
his  own  incomparable  personality  to  add  to  the  skill  as 

32 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

a  painter.  During  his  stay  at  Genoa  many  demands  were 
made  upon  Van  Dyck  for  paintings  of  sacred  history, 
which  were  not  only  dispersed  about  Italy,  but  exported 
from  Genoa  to  Sicily  and  Spain,  and  even  to  his  native 
city  of  Antwerp.  In  these  paintings  Van  Dyck  used 
freely  the  compositions  of  Rubens  and  Titian,  sometimes 
repeating,  as  in  later  days  at  Antwerp,  his  own  com- 
positions in  more  mature  forms.  The  popularity  of  his 
religious  paintings  was  due,  in  all  probability,  to  Van 
Dyck's  personal  sympathy  with  the  religious  atmosphere 
of  the  period,  the  passionate  over-emphasised  fervour 
inculcated  by  the  Jesuits.  It  is  just  this  note  of  religious 
intensity  which  is  lacking  in  the  great  religious  composi- 
tions of  Rubens,  Titian  and  Tintoretto.  Their  great 
paintings  are  exhibitions  of  magnificent  pictorial  skill, 
splendid  outpourings  of  pictorial  rhetoric,  but  they  do 
not  reach  the  inner  heart  of  the  spectator.  Van  Dyck, 
working  on  simpler  lines,  borrows  the  head  of  Christ,  for 
instance,  from  Titian,  converts  the  '  Tribute  Money'  of 
Titian  into  the  Tribute  Money  of  Van  Dyck  in  the  Pa- 
lazzo Bianco  at  Genoa,  and  uses  the  same  type  for  the 
Man  of  Sorrows  in  the  same  collection.  There  is  a  fine 
example  of  these  sacred  paintings  at  Buckingham  Palace 
in  Christ  healing  the  Paralytic^  another  version  of  which 
is  at  Munich.  In  the  familiar  subject  of  the  Crucified 
Christy  a  subject  which  Van  Dyck  made  peculiarly  his 
own,  and  for  which  there  seems  to  have  been  a  special  de- 
mand at  Rome,  Van  Dyck  did  nothing  more  than  borrow 
from  Rubens,  but  whereas  the  Christ  of  Rubens  would  be 

e  33 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

a  glorious  decoration  for  a  cathedral,  the  Christ  of  Van 
Dyck  was  a  painting  which,  hung  in  a  side-chapel  or 
private  oratory,  would  receive  the  tears  and  passionate  de- 
votion of  distressed  humanity,  who  saw  in  such  a  painting 
the  representation  of  the  Divine  Man  while  His  image  was 
in  their  hearts.  So  with  the  Madonna :  no  painter  outside 
the  Italian  School  has  expressed  the  root  idea  of  divine 
maternity  so  well  as  Van  Dyck,  whether  it  be  as  the 
Mother  with  her  infant  Son  or  the  Mother  wailing  the 
death  of  her  best-beloved  on  the  cross  of  infamy.  Here, 
like  Raphael,  Van  Dyck  adopted  no  conventional  type, 
but,  like  Raphael,  he  took  his  models  from  human  life  and 
transmuted  them  into  divine  significance.  In  such  paint- 
ings, again,  while  adopting  all  the  rhetorical  and  theatrical 
formulas  of  Rubens,  Van  Dyck  added  a  human  touch, 
which  brings  them  nearer  to  the  emotional  spectator.  In 
the  history  of  art  the  religious  paintings  of  Van  Dyck  must 
occupy  a  secondary  place,  but  in  the  history  of  the  human 
race,  especially  that  of  the  Roman  Church,  they  have  an 
importance  of  their  own  exceeding  that  of  greater  artists. 
In  remote  churches  of  France,  Italy  and  Spain,  copies  will 
be  found  of  well-known  paintings  by  Van  Dyck  used  as 
typical  objects  of  devotion. 

With  mythological  subjects  Van  Dyck  was  less  suc- 
cessful. There  he  could  not  follow  the  tremendous  ex- 
amples of  Rubens  and  Titian.  On  the  one  hand,  he  shrank 
from  that  fearless  and  reckless  treatment  of  the  female 
nude  in  which  Rubens  revelled, and  on  the  other,  he  could 
not  enter  into  that  realm  of  poetic  mystery  which  had  been 

34 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

breathed  into  Italy  from  Hellas,  and  had  not  long  before 
found  its  most  inspired  outlet  of  expression  in  Giorgione 
and  the  School  of  Venice.  It  was  not  that  Van  Dyck 
shrank  from  painting  the  nude  when  occasion  demanded, 
but  when  he  does  so  it  is  rather  in  the  spirit  of  a  gourmet 
or  dilettante.  His  early  painting  of  Jupiter  and  Antiope, 
of  which  several  disputed  versions  exist,  has  neither  the 
palpitating  realism  of  Rubens  nor  the  idealised  sensuous- 
ness  of  Titian.  Even  his  early  painting  of  Susanna  and 
the  Elders,  done  in  his  Rubens  days,  has  suggested  the 
idea  that  the  lady  was  more  concerned  with  the  loss  of  her 
clothes  than  with  the  danger  to  her  virtue.  In  portrait- 
painting  Van  Dyck  attained  for  himself  at  Genoa  a  fame 
which  has  lasted  to  the  present  day,  and  is  not  likely  to 
be  dimmed  in  the  future.  Van  Dyck  was  destined  by 
nature  to  be  the  painter  par  excellence  of  persons  who 
maybe  described  in  ordinary  parlance  as  ladies  and  gentle- 
men. Though  of  pure  bourgeois  extraction,  it  is  easy  to 
see  from  Van  Dyck's  portraits  of  himself  that  he  had  ac- 
quired the  temperament  and  allure  befitting  a  youth  of 
gentle  birth.  II pittore  cavallerescowas  a  good  nickname, 
for  if  he  was  cavalleresco  in  himself  and  his  attitude  to  his 
brother-artists,  he  was  also  the  same  in  his  portraits,  in 
which  he  seldom  failed  to  give  his  sitter,  whatever  his  rank 
in  life,  the  appearance  of  aristocratic  breeding  and  refine- 
ment. 

Genoa  was  a  city  of  rich,  noble  families,  who  main- 
tained an  oligarchic  government  over  the  state,  as  at 
Venice.    These  families  inhabited  great  palaces,  on  which 

35 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

they  lavished  great  wealth,  and  in  many  of  which  the  same 
great  families  dwell  even  in  the  twentieth  century.  The 
two  ruling  families  in  Van  Dyck's  time  were  those  of  Doria 
and  Spinola,  who  contended  for  the  supremacy  of  govern- 
ment. With  the  latter  family  Van  Dyck  was  specially 
connected.  He  painted  the  famous  general,  Ambrogio 
Spinola,  more  than  once.  Cornelius  de  Wael  seems  also 
to  have  been  employed  by  the  same  patron  to  record  his 
military  achievements  at  Ostend,  Breda,  and  elsewhere. 
Ambrogio  Spinola' s  son,  Filippo,  was  married  about  1623 
to  Geronima  Doria,  daughter  of  Paolo  Doria,  procurator 
of  the  Republic,  and  his  daughter  Polissena  was  the  wife 
of  Don  Diego  Filippo  Guzman,  Marques  de  Leganez, 
Spanish  envoy  to  the  Republic  of  Genoa.  All  of  these 
personages  were  painted  by  Van  Dyck.  Leganez  was  the 
agent  through  which  the  painter  obtained  commissions  for 
Spain,  and  through  him  Van  Dyck  may  have  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  work  of  Velazquez.  The  other  great 
houses  of  Brignole-Sala,  Grimaldi,  Durazzo,  Balbi,  Palla- 
vicini,  Lomellini,  Imperiali,  Cattaneo,  to  mention  only  a 
few  of  the  names — then,  and  still,  well  known  and  domin- 
ant in  Genoa — were  all  laid  open  to  the  magic  brush  of  Van 
Dyck.  Up  to  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  bulk 
of  these  portraits  remained  in  the  palaces  for  which  they 
had  been  painted, and  a  long  list  of  paintings  by  Van  Dyck 
is  given  by  the  Genoese  historian,  C.  G.  Ratti,  in  his  edi- 
tion of  Soprani's  Lives  of  the  Genoese  Painters  and  his 
Guide  to  the  Chief  Sights  in  Genoa  (second  edition  pub- 
lished in  1780).     Since  that  date  many  of  these  portraits 

36 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

have  left  their  native  country,  and  the  Genoese  portraits 
by  Van  Dyck  are  ranked  amongst  the  most  highly  prized 
treasures  of  the  modern  millionaire.  The  migration  from 
Genoa  of  the  series  of  paintings  by  Van  Dyck  from  the 
Cattaneo  Palace,  including  the  famous  full-length  of  Elena 
Grimaldi,  Contessa  Cattaneo,  which  was  sold  for  a  fabu- 
lous price  to  an  American  collection,  was  a  great  loss  to 
Italy, although  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  paintings  were 
thereby  rescued  from  an  unjustifiable  neglect.  It  is  satis- 
factory to  think  that  two,  at  all  events,  of  this  series  were 
secured  for  the  National  Gallery.  Through  the  generosity 
of  some  of  her  great  citizens  the  city  of  Genoa  has  been 
able  to  enter  into  permanent  possession  of  some  of  these 
treasures.  The  famous  portraits  of  Anton  Giulio,  Marchese 
di  Brignole-Sala,  on  horseback,  and  his  wife,  Paola  Ador- 
no,  remain  fortunately  the  chief  attraction  of  the  Palazzo 
Rosso,  now  the  public  museum,  at  Genoa.  The  White 
Boy  in  theDurazzo  Palace  is  but  one  more  noteworthy  ex- 
ample of  the  treasures  which  the  city  of  Genoa  can  hardly 
afford  to  lose.  Too  many  of  the  portraits  of  the  Spinola, 
Balbi,  Lomellini,  and  other  families  have,  like  those  of 
the  Cattaneo  family,  quitted  Genoa  for  ever. 

The  most  remarkable  thing  about  the  whole  series 
of  Genoese  portraits  by  Van  Dyck  is  the  grandiose  air  of 
distinction  with  which  he  invests  his  sitters.  His  male 
portraits  have  already  acquired  that  look  of  romantic 
melancholy  which  is  in  strong  contrast  to  the  exuberant 
vitality  of  Rubens,  or  the  full-blooded  healthiness  of  a 
Titian  portrait.      Genoa  was  a  great  rendezvous  of  the 

37 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Spanish  aristocracy,  and  Van  Dyck  may  have  imbibed 
from  their  society  something  of  the  haughty  insouciance 
of  the  Spanish  grandee.  In  the  fateful  look  which  is  to 
be  found  in  Van  Dyck's  Italian  portraits  we  can  trace 
that  spirit  of  unrest  and  anxiety  which  is  to  be  found  in 
the  portraits  of  so  different  a  thinker  as  Lorenzo  Lotto. 
The  great  Genoese  ladies  were  a  simpler  problem.  To 
live,  love,  and  wear  fine  clothes  would  seem  to  be  the 
duty  of  maiden,  bride,  or  mother  in  Van  Dyck's  por- 
traits. There  is  more  character  in  the  homely  bourgeois 
ladies  who  were  painted  by  Van  Dyck  in  his  youth  at 
Antwerp  than  in  many  of  the  proud  and  gorgeous  dames 
who  stand  scornfully  on  the  steps  of  their  palaces  at 
Genoa.  There  is  more  life  and  humour  in  the  Jordaens- 
like  babies  and  children  of  the  early  days  at  Antwerp 
than  in  such  superb  little  aristocrats  as  the  Balbi  children 
of  the  Lucas  collection  in  the  National  Gallery.  One 
feels  that  a  century  or  so  later  Van  Dyck  would,  like 
Romncy,  have  been  the  ideal  painter  of  an  Eton  boy. 

It  is  interesting  to  watch  the  transition  from  the 
vigorous  hand  of  youth  in  the  Antwerp  style,  with  its 
touch  of  mere  animalism,  to  the  passionate  vigour  and 
romance  of  early  manhood  in  the  paintings  at  Genoa. 

The  story  of  Van  Dyck  at  Genoa  was  broken  once, 
if  not  oftener.  He  was  sent  for  to  Sicily  to  paint  at 
Palermo  a  portrait  of  Philibert  Emmanuel  of  Savoy, 
Viceroy  of  Sicily,  then  part  of  the  Spanish  dominions. 
This  was  in  the  summer  of  1624,  an(i  m  Juty  °f  tnat 
year  Van  Dyck  visited  at  Palermo  the  famous  woman- 

38 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

painter,  Sofonisba  Anguissola,  who  late  in  life  had  married 
into  the  Lomellini  family  of  Genoa,  and  had  settled  in 
Palermo.  Sofonisba  was  now  ninety-six  years  of  age,  and 
Van  Dyck  has  left  in  his  Sketch-Book  a  sketch  of  the  old 
lady  and  a  note  of  his  visit  to  her.  He  says  that  she  was 
still  keenly  interested  in  painting,  and  gave  him  some 
good  advice  and  some  useful  hints.  Van  Dyck  quickly 
obtained  commissions  at  Palermo,  especially  for  subjects 
dealing  with  the  patron  saint  of  that  city,  the  virgin  saint 
Rosalia.  An  outbreak  of  plague  cut  his  visit  short,  and 
he  returned  post-haste  to  Genoa,  where  he  completed  his 
commissions  for  Palermo  at  his  leisure. 

There  is  some  reason  to  think  that  Van  Dyck  paid 
a  flying  visit  to  his  native  land  in  the  year  1625.  It 
would  appear  that  his  absence  abroad  caused  some  diffi- 
culty in  the  winding-up  of  his  late  father's  estate.  He 
was  certainly  absent  from  Antwerp  on  September  2J, 
1624,  on  which  day  his  brother-in-law,  Adriaen  Diercx, 
a  notary  at  Antwerp,  certified  that  his  brother  Anthony 
was  of  full  age,  was  abroad,  and  had  said  that  any  one 
might  settle  his  affairs  for  him.  He  was  as  certainly  absent 
on  December  12,  1625,  on  which  day  his  brothers  and 
sisters  were  called  upon  to  certify  that  Anthony  was  still 
out  of  the  country. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  is  the  following  evidence  to 
show  the  possibility  of  Van  Dyck  having  been  at  Antwerp 
in  1625.  George  Vertue,  the  engraver  and  diarist,  notes 
that  Jonathan  Richardson,  the  elder,  the  well-known 
English  painter  and  collector,  had  possessed  a  sketch  and 

39 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

part  of  a  letter  by  Van  Dyck,  subscribed  by  the  painter 
himself,  Ant0-  Van  Dyck,  16  d'Ottob-  1625,  Anversa. 
This  drawing  cannot,  unfortunately,  be  traced,  but  there 
seems  no  valid  reason  for  doubting  Vertue's  accuracy. 
The  inscription,  moreover,  might  possibly  have  been 
c  Ant0-  Van  Dyck  .  .  .  di  Anversa.' 

In  the  Stroganoff  collection  at  St.  Petersburg  there 
is  a  fine  portrait  of  Nicolas  Rockox,  the  burgomaster  of 
Antwerp,  who  was  so  intimately  connected  with  the  life 
of  Rubens.  This  portrait  was  painted  by  Van  Dyck  and 
engraved  by  Lucas  Vorsterman.  Of  Vorsterman's  en- 
graving several  states  exist  showing  curious  differences. 
Among  the  accessories  in  the  picture  is  a  bust  of  Demos- 
thenes, which,  according  to  the  letters  of  Peiresc  to 
Rubens,  was  acquired  by  Rockox  in  1 62 1  or  1622.  The 
second  state  bears  Van  Dyck's  name  as  painter,  which 
was  erased  in  the  third,  but  restored  in  the  fourth,  when 
the  plate  was  much  altered,  and  the  name  of  Rockox 
added,  with  the  statement  Eques,  Urbis  Antwerpice  consul 
nonum.  Rockox  was  burgomaster  for  the  ninth  and  last 
time  in  1625.  The  fifth  state  bears  Van  Dyck's  name 
and  the  statement  Anton:  Van  Dijck pinxit  Anno.  1625. 
Too  much  stress  must  not  be  laid  upon  this  date,  for 
Vorsterman,  the  engraver,  was  living  in  London  from 
1624  to  1630,  and  Peiresc  bought  a  print  of  Vorsterman's 
engraving  in  1627. 

George  Vertue  supplies  another  piece  of  evidence  in 
a  statement  received  through  one  Peeters,  a  painter,  that 
Mr.  Remy,  otherwise  Remigius  van  Leemput,  one  of 

40 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Van  Dyck's  principal  assistants  in  London,  with  whom 
Peeters  was  acquainted,  c  has  many  times  said  that  the 
Duke  of  Buckingham  that  was  embassador  to  France  in 
King  Charles  the  first  Time,  being  recall'd  from  France 
came  by  the  way  of  Flanders,  where  he  meet  with  Van- 
dyke the  Painter  and  had  his  Picture  drawn  by  him,  which 
he  brought  over  and  showd  the  King,  which  the  King 
liked  very  well,  and  order'd  Vandyke  to  be  sent  for  over 
to  come  and  draw  the  Queen's  Picture  .  .  .'  It  is  difficult 
to  discredit  Mr.  Remy's  statement  altogether,  seeing  that 
he  was  certainly  in  personal  touch  with  Van  Dyck.  If 
the  statement  be  true,  the  meeting  between  Van  Dyck 
and  Buckingham  must  have  taken  place  between  June 
1625,  when  Henrietta  Maria  arrived  in  England  as  queen 
and  bride, and  August  1628,  when  Buckingham  fell  under 
Felton's  knife  at  Portsmouth. 

During  this  period  Buckingham's  only  visit  to  France 
was  on  his  luckless  expedition  to  La  Rochelle  in  1627, 
but  in  November  1625  Buckingham  was  on  a  special 
embassy  at  The  Hague,  and  if  Van  Dyck  was  at  Antwerp 
or  Brussels  in  October,  it  would  not  be  unreasonable  to 
suppose  that  he  may  have  been  received  by  Buckingham  at 
The  Hague  in  November.  Vertue  states  that  he  himself 
had  seen  a  portrait  of  Buckingham  painted  by  Van  Dyck. 

Mr.  Remy  further  stated,  according  to  Peeters,  that 
'Vandyke  acquainted  the  King  that  he  came  over  express 
to  His  Majesty,  but  desir'd  leave  he  might  go  back  and 
settle  his  affairs,  and  then  he  whould  come  over  again  and 
reside  hear  and  so  hee  did.'     This  seems  to  corroborate  a 

f  41 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

further  tradition  that  Van  Dyck  came  to  London  and 
stayed  with  his  friend  and  fellow- townsman,  George  Gel- 
dorp,  at  the  latter1  s  house  in  Drury  Lane,  but  returned  to 
Antwerp  owing  to  the  preponderating  influence  at  court 
still  enjoyed  by  Daniel  My  tens.  If  this  all  took  place  in 
December  1625,  it  would  still  fit  in  with  the  certificate  of 
his  sisters  that  Van  Dyck  was  out  of  the  country  at  that 
date.  It  is  noteworthy  that  during  the  year  1626  there 
is  very  little  definite  information  as  to  the  life  and  work  of 
Anthony  Van  Dyck.  The  only  evidence  of  his  presence 
at  Genoa  lies  in  two  portraits  of  Gian  Vincenzo  Imperiale, 
one  of  which  has  lately  passed  into  a  great  American  col- 
lection, and  the  other  is  in  the  Brussels  Gallery.  Both  of 
these  portraits  are,  however,  hardly  worthy  of  Van  Dyck's 
great  Genoese  tradition,  and  may  very  well  be  the  work 
of  one  of  his  numerous  imitators  at  Genoa,  such  as  G.  B. 
Carbone. 

Apart  from  the  possible  direct  invitation  from  Buck- 
ingham, and  the  former,  and,  as  it  would  seem,  unceas- 
ing patronage  of  the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Arundel, 
there  were  other  agencies  which  would  impel  Van  Dyck 
to  try  his  fortunes  in  France  and  England.  Genoa,  as 
a  great  trade  centre,  was  the  meeting-place  of  many 
persons  concerned  in  the  newly  discovered  sport  of 
picture-dealing.  There  Van  Dyck  met  Nicholas  Lanier, 
nominally  one  of  the  king's  musicians,  but  really  an 
agent  to  buy  pictures  on  behalf  of  King  Charles  I.,  and 
who  was  about  to  arrange  with  Daniel  Nys  for  the  pur- 
chase of  the  great  collection  of  pictures  belonging  to 

42 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

the  late  Duke  of  Mantua.  Orazio  Gentileschi,  an  Italian 
painter  of  considerable  repute,  was  at  Genoa  on  a  similar 
errand.  Francois  Langlois  of  Chartres,  a  dealer  in  en- 
gravings and  the  like  at  Paris,  whose  portrait  Van  Dyck 
painted  as  a  bagpipe  player,  was  a  recognised  agent  and 
dealer  on  behalf  of  the  Earl  of  Arundel  and  other 
collectors.  Lumagne,  a  banker  of  Lyons,  was  also  one 
of  Van  Dyck's  sitters.  Van  Dyck  painted  them  all,  and 
each  one  no  doubt  advised  him  to  pay  court  to  the  new 
art-loving  king  in  England.  It  is  known  that  he  crossed 
the  Alps  by  the  Mount  Cenis  route,  and  was  delayed  at 
St.  Jean  de  Maurienne  by  fever,  where  he  painted  a  portrait 
of  his  host's  daughter.  It  is  also  known  that  he  visited 
the  famous  antiquary,  Peiresc,  Rubens's  friend  and  corre- 
spondent, at  Aix,  in  Provence.  A  portrait,  called  Prince 
D'Angri,  probably  Prince  Tingry,  which  has  lately  passed 
with  the  Salting  Collection  to  the  National  Gallery,  sug- 
gests that  Van  Dyck  may  have  passed  a  short  time  at  the 
court  of  Luxembourg,  through  which  territory  he  would 
pass  on  his  return  to  his  native  land.  Another  event  may 
have  had  a  powerful  influence  in  guiding  the  plans  of 
Anthony  Van  Dyck.  In  1626  Rubens  lost  his  wife, 
Isabella  Brant,  and  took  his  sorrow  so  much  to  heart  that 
he  abandoned  regular  painting  for  a  time,  and  assuaged 
his  grief  by  travelling  and  diplomacy,  that  partook  to 
some  extent  of  political  intrigue.  There  was  thus  a  place 
open  at  the  moment  in  Antwerp,  which  Van  Dyck  alone 
of  living  Flemish  artists  was  capable  of  filling. 

It  is  just  possible  that  further  details  may  still  be  dis- 

43 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

covered  of  Van  Dyck's  residence  at  Genoa,  which  would 
throw  light  on  his  work  and  whereabouts  in  the  years 
1626-27.  Lucas  van  Uffel,  a  rich  merchant  of  Antwerp, 
whose  portrait  Van  Dyck  painted  at  Genoa  (now at  Stafford 
House),  was  a  special  friend  of  the  painter,  and  received 
constant  news  of  him  through  Cornelius  de  Wael.  Up  to 
quite  recent  times  the  letters  between  De  Wael  and  Van 
Uffel  were  known  to  exist, and  they  may  yet  be  discovered. 
A  better  fate  attended  the  correspondence  between  Van 
Dyck  and  Giambattista  Paggi,a  Genoese  painter,  who  died 
in  1627,  and  wh°se  letters  still  exist.  It  is  clear  that  Van 
Dyck  returned  to  Antwerp  some  time  in  1627,  as  in  that 
year  he  painted  Pieter  Stevens,  almoner  of  the  town,  a 
rich  collector  and  amateur  at  Antwerp.  This  portrait  of 
Stevens  has  lately  been  identified  in  the  Mauritshuis  at  The 
Hague.  It  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  portrait  of  Prince 
Tingry,  already  mentioned,  and  that  of  Pieter  Stevens,  the 
sitter  wears  a  richly  embroidered  glove,  a  usual  circum- 
stance, and  a  luxury  confined  to  the  noble  and  wealthy 
classes.  The  portrait  of  Stevens  led  evidently  to  the  com- 
mission for  Van  Dyck  to  paint  the  portrait  of  Stevens's 
bride,  Anna  Wake,  daughter  of  Lionel  Wake,  to  whom 
Stevens  was  married  in  the  Church  of  St.  Walburga  on 
March  12,  1628,  the  date  1628  appearing  on  her  portrait 
by  Van  Dyck,  which  hangs  as  a  companion  to  her  hus- 
band's portrait  at  The  Hague. 

Lionel  Wake,  the  father  of  this  young  lady,  was  an 
English  merchant  at  Antwerp,  a  wealthy  financier  and 
agent,  through  whom  the  Regent,  Archduchess  Isabella, 

44 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

transacted  much  business.  He  was  the  friend  and  agent 
of  Rubens,  and  of  Sir  Dudley  Carleton  at  The  Hague. 
Throughout  1627  the  political  intrigues  were  going  on, 
by  which  Buckingham  sought  to  negotiate  between  the 
English  and  Spanish  Governments.  Rubens  was  one  of 
the  agents  in  these  matters,  and  so  were  Balthasar  Gerbier 
and  the  Abbe*  Scaglia,  who  were  backwards  and  forwards 
between  London,  The  Hague,  and  Brussels.  Most  of  the 
actors  in  this  drama  are  known  to  us  through  portraits 
by  Van  Dyck,  and  probably  Lionel  Wake  and  the  rest  of 
his  family  were  also  among  the  painter's  sitters.  The  assas- 
sination of  Buckingham  in  1628  put  an  end  to  all  this 
political  business, and  was,  perhaps, a  factor  in  Van  Dyck's 
decision  to  settle  again  at  Antwerp.  There  is  further  evid- 
ence to  denote  his  presence  in  his  native  city.  His  sister, 
Cornelia,  died  in  September  1627,  and  was  buried  in  the 
churchyard  of  the  Beguinage  at  Antwerp.  Anthony  Van 
Dyck  seems  to  have  been  much  attached  to  his  sisters, 
and  on  March  3,  1628,  he  made  his  will  before  a  notary 
at  Antwerp.  In  this  document  he  described  himself  as 
c  painter,  bachelor,  and  in  good  health,'  and  made  two 
older  sisters,  Susanna  and  Isabella,  who  were  also  beguines^ 
his  heirs,  directing  that  after  their  deaths  his  property 
should  be  divided  between  the  poor  at  Antwerp  and  the 
Convent  of  St.  Michael.  He  made  no  mention  of  his  elder 
brother,  Frans  Van  Dyck,  or  his  sister  Catherina,  who 
was  married  to  the  notary,  Adriaen  Diercx,  but  he  pro- 
vided for  the  support  of  an  old  woman  who  had  been  in  his 
service  and  that  of  his  dead  father.    His  younger  brother, 

45 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Theodorus,  was  a  priest,  and  another  sister,  Anna,  a  nun 
of  the  Facontine  Convent,  so  that  they  could  not  receive 
any  property.  At  the  same  time  the  two  sisters,  Susanna 
and  Isabella,  made  wills,  leaving  their  fortune  to  the  painter. 
Anthony  Van  Dyck  took  the  further  step  of  affiliating  him- 
self to  the  Confraternity  of  Celibates,  which  was  directed 
by  the  Society  of  Jesus  at  Antwerp.  In  these  transactions 
Van  Dyck  shows  himself  in  an  amiable  light,  as  of  a  warm, 
impulsive,  and  affectionate  nature,  with  a  strong  leaning 
towards  religious  fervour. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ON  May  27,  1628,  James  Hay,  Earl  of  Carlisle,  an 
English  courtier  and  one  of  Buckingham's  agents 
on  the  Continent,  writes  from  Brussels  to  the  Duke 
of  Buckingham  and  says,  'At  my  comeing  into  Antwerp 
(upon  Saturdaythej^Maycurr1),!  found  that  Don  Carlos 
de  Colonna,  and  Monsr-  Rubin  were  out  of  towne,  gone 
the  day  before  unto  Brussels;  as  I  signified  in  my  former 
dispatch  (of  1 8  past)  unto  my  Lord  Conaway.  The  day 
following  after  dinner,  taking  occasion  to  see  some  curio- 
sities at  Monsr-  Vandigs,  I  met  Monsr-  Rubin  there,  newly 
returned  from  Bruexelles ;  which  I  knew  not  of  until 
that  instant.   .   .   .' 

This  statement  is  interesting,  as  proving  that  Rubens 
was  home  at  Antwerp  when  Van  Dyck  returned  from  Italy, 
and  that  so  far  from  resenting  his  arrival,  he  was  on  friendly 
terms  with  his  former  assistant.  Don  Carlos  de  Colonna, 
here  mentioned,  was  appointed  Spanish  Ambassador  to 
England  in  1629.  Van  Dyck  drew  his  portrait  in  1628, 
and  painted  a  large  equestrian  portrait  of  him,  now  in  the 
Colonna  Gallery  at  Rome.  Rubens  was,  however,  im- 
mersed in  politics,  and  shortly  after  this  interview  pro- 
ceeded on  an  embassy  to  Paris  and  Madrid,  and  in  1629 
to  London  ;  it  was  not  until  the  summer  of  1630  that  he 
returned  to  Antwerp. 

47 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

The  field  at  Antwerp  was  thus  open  for  Anthony 
Van  Dyck,  and,  as  has  been  already  suggested,  the  control 
of  the  great  picture-manufactory  in  Rubens's  house  may 
have  been  left  under  the  superintendence  of  Van  Dyck,  for 
no  other  of  Rubens's  assistants  would  have  been  capable 
of  directing  it.  At  all  events,  commissions  of  importance 
began  to  pour  in  on  Van  Dyck  from  churches  and  public 
bodies,  in  addition  to  portraits  of  official  personages  and 
private  friends.  It  is  recorded  that  Van  Dyck  lived  in  a 
modest  house,  very  different  to  the  great  hotel  built  by 
Rubens,  and  that  he  possessed  a  valuable  collection  of 
paintings  by  Titian,  including  probably  the  famous 
£  Cornaro  Family,'  which  he  had  in  his  house  in  England, 
and  other  artists,  as  well  as  the  curiosities  which  the  Earl 
of  Carlisle  went  to  see. 

It  is  difficult,  as  before,  to  draw  a  line  between  the 
sacred  paintings  executed  by  Van  Dyck  at  Genoa,  and 
those  painted  immediately  after  his  return  to  Antwerp. 
Some  of  his  best  and  finest  renderings  of  the  Holy  Family 
subject  belong  to  this  period.  The  Mystic  Marriage  of 
St.  Catherine  at  Buckingham  Palace,  the  Holy  Family 
at  Turin,  the  Virgin  and  Child  with  St,  Catherine  at 
Grosvenor  House,  a  reminiscence  of  Correggio,  the  Rest 
in  Egypt  at  Munich,  and  the  splendid  Virgin  and  Child 
with  two  donors  in  the  Louvre,  form  a  group  of  paintings 
which  would  have  established  Van  Dyck  in  high  rank  as 
a  history  painter,  even  if  he  had  never  painted  a  portrait 
at  all.  The  famous  Christ  Crucified 'was  in  demand,  and 
the  churches  and  religious  confraternities  beset  him  with 

48 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

commissions.  One  of  the  earliestwas  the  renowned  Ecstasy 
of  St.  Augustine,  painted  for  St.  Augustine's  church  in 
Antwerp  and  finished  in  June  1 6  2  8 ,  a  huge  painting  con- 
structed on  academical  lines,  akin  to  those  of  the  Bolog- 
nese  Academy.  The  Lamentation  over  the  Dead  Christ, 
or  Nood  Gods  in  popular  phraseology,  was  a  subject  in 
which  Van  Dyck  specially  excelled,  and  the  treatment  of 
this  subject  in  the  paintings  of  the  Antwerp  Museum,  the 
Kaiser  Friedrich  Museum  at  Berlin,  the  Louvre,  and  the 
Munich  Gallery,  all  show  a  dramatic  scene  of  poignant 
religious  feeling,  quite  different  from  the  renderings  of 
the  same  subject  in  the  atelier  of  Rubens.  One  of  Van 
Dyck's  earliest  duties  after  his  return  was  to  complete,  for 
the  Dominican  Sisters,  the  great  painting  of  the  Crucified 
Christ  between  St.  Dominic  and  St.  Catherine  of  Siena, 
which  he  had  promised  to  execute  as  a  votive  offering  to 
his  father's  memory.  Van  Dyck's  affiliation  to  a  branch 
of  the  Society  of  Jesus  led  him  to  paint  some  of  his  most 
admirable  compositions  from  subjects  connected  with  the 
Jesuit  Order.  Among  thesewere  the  Vision  of  St.  Anthony 
of Padua,  in  the  Brera  Gallery  at  Milan;  St.  Rosalia  receiv- 
ing a  Wreath  from  the  Infant  Christ,  and  the  Virgin 
appearing  to  the  Blessed  Hermann  Joseph,  both  in  the 
Imperial  Gallery  at  Vienna. 

In  compositions  of  this  kind  on  a  very  large  scale,Van 
Dyck  was  not  seen  at  his  best;  whereas  Rubens  revelled  in 
ahuge  canvas,  Van  Dyck's  powers  failed  him  when  stretched 
so  far.  Rubens  was  a  master  of  stage-composition,  like 
Tintoretto,  and  the  bigger  the   space  to  fill,  the  more 

g  49 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

eagerly  and  vigorously  Rubens  set  to  work  to  fill  it.  Van 
Dyck,  on  the  other  hand,  had  no  originality  of  construc- 
tion, no  scruples  as  to  borrowing,  so  that  many  of  his  sub- 
jects are  based  flagrantly  on  compositions  by  Rubens  or 
Titian,  such  as  the  Elevation  of  the  Cross  at  Courtray, 
famous  for  the  recent  robbery  and  recovery  of  the  picture, 
the  great  Crucifixion  at  Malines,  and  the  Crucifixion  au 
coup  d'e'ponge  in  St.  Michael's  church  at  Ghent.  More 
peculiar  to  Van  Dyck  are  the  two  paintings  at  Termonde, 
the  Adoration  of  the  Shepherds  and  the  Crucifixion  with 
St.  Francis,  which  belong  to  a  rather  later  date.  Unfor- 
tunately in  nearly  every  case  these  great  paintings  by  Van 
Dyck  have  suffered  irretrievably.  They  are  usually  painted 
in  a  low  tone  of  colour,  and  with  pigments  which  have 
proved  sensitive  to  the  cold  and  damp  and  other  risks, 
shared  by  so  many  paintings  which  have  been  exposed  for 
centuries  in  the  great  ill-ventilated  churches  to  which 
they  have  belonged.  For  this  reason  VanDyck's  machines, 
as  they  have  been  irreverently  called,  have  never  met  with 
the  recognition  which  they  deserve.  It  may  be  remarked 
that  a  similar  fate  has  attended  the  works  of  the  great 
painters  of  the  Bolognese  School.  The  waning  influence 
of  the  Church  from  the  objective  point  of  view  has  seri- 
ously diminished  the  value  of  such  paintings  as  religious 
emblems.  The  Church  itself  has  for  the  most  part  proved 
itself  a  careless  and  unintelligent  guardian  of  the  trea- 
sures of  art  which  pious  generosity  may  have  deposited 
under  its  care.  A  work  of  art,  once  valued  in  hard  cash, 
quickly  loses  its  spiritual  and  even  its  artistic  purity.    If 

50 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

highly  valued,  it  usually  meets  a  mere  pagan  fate  in  a 
gallery  or  museum ;  while  if  considered  unworthy  of  this 
honour,  it  is  seldom  considered  worthy  of  protection. 

For  secular  patrons  Van  Dyck  was  called  upon  to 
paint  the  mythological  subjects  then  in  fashion,  though 
of  those  which  he  is  known  to  have  painted,  only  some 
few  have  survived  as  worthy  of  notice.  Rinaldo  a?id 
Armida  was  a  favourite  subject,  and  the  one  which  event- 
ually paved  his  way  into  England.  Venus  at  the  Forge 
of  Vulcan  was  another  subject  in  which  Van  Dyck  took 
pleasure.  Though  he  exercised  special  trouble  and  skill 
in  painting  the  nude  torsos  of  both  sexes,  Van  Dyck 
never  showed  the  abandon  of  Rubens  or  Jordaens,  and 
the  most  sensuous  of  his  paintings  could  not  be  out  of 
place  in  a  lady's  drawing-room.  In  such  subjects  he  was 
frankly  Titianesque,  and  influenced  by  the  restrained 
passion  of  Correggio  or  Guido,  rather  than  by  the  coarse 
licence  of  his  own  native  country.  In  one  department,  that 
of  child  angels,  or  putti,  Van  Dyck  took  a  special  delight, 
even  if  in  this  he  could  not  claim  any  originality  of  his  own. 

As  a  portrait-painter,  however,  Van  Dyck  had  at- 
tained to  complete  success  before  the  time  of  his  actual 
return  to  Antwerp.  In  spite  of  many  competent  practi- 
tioners of  the  same  art  at  Antwerp,  painters  so  skilled  that 
it  requires  some  care  to  prevent  their  works  from  being 
fathered  on  Van  Dyck,  Van  Dyck  was  without  a  rival. 
With  his  wonderful  power  of  assimilation  and  of  accom- 
modating himself  to  the  circumstances  in  which  he  was 
placed,  Van  Dyck  reverted  on  his  return  to  Antwerp  to 

5* 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

a  Flemish  manner,  though  strengthened  and  warmed  by 
his  Italian  experience.  He  painted  the  portraits  of  most 
citizens  of  note  at  Antwerp,  or  at  the  Spanish  court  in 
Brussels.  The  influence  of  the  Spanish  court,  with  its 
newly  donned  austerity  and  its  negation  of  colour,  is  illus- 
trated in  the  portraits  by  Van  Dyck,  as  well  as  in  those  by 
his  great  contemporary,  Velazquez.  There  are  certain 
portraits  in  which  Van  Dyck  seems  to  be  imitating  Velaz- 
quez, such  as  the  full-length  portrait  of  the  Due  d'  Ar en- 
berg  in  the  collection  of  Earl  Spencer  at  Althorp,  and  the 
portrait  of  the  Cardinal-Infant  Ferdinand  of  Austria  at 
Madrid.  Although,  however,  Van  Dyck  and  Velazquez 
were  almost  exact  contemporaries  in  age,  Van  Dyck's  art 
matured  with  much  greater  rapidity  than  did  that  of  the 
Spanish  painter.  Before  the  year  1628,  in  which  Rubens 
visited  Madrid  and  diverted  the  aims  of  art  there,  Van 
Dyck  had  accomplished  all  the  great  works  of  his  Genoese 
period,  and  was  renowned,  whereas  Velazquez  was  still 
labouring  and  had  barely  succeeded  with  his  earliest  por- 
traits of  King  Philip  IV.  Through  the  influence  of  Spinola 
and  Leganez,  the  two  painters  may  have  known  each 
other  by  repute,  but  paintings  by  Van  Dyck  are  likely  to 
have  found  their  way  to  Madrid  much  earlier  than  paint- 
ings by  Velazquez  could  have  arrived  at  Genoa  or  been 
known  at  Antwerp.  The  portrait  of  Ferdinand  of  Austria 
has  some  affinity  to  the  famous  Fraga  portrait  of  Philip  IV. 
by  Velazquez,  but  Van  Dyck's  portrait  must  have  been 
painted  in  1634,  while  that  by  Velazquez  was  not  painted 
till   1644,   three  years  after  Van  Dyck's  death.     Great 

52 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

imitator  as  Van  Dyck  was,  dates  would  seem  to  prove, 
that  if  any  influence  was  exerted  by  one  painter  on  the 
other,  the  Spaniard  must  have  been  influenced  by  the 
Fleming. 

The  wise  old  Archduchess  Isabella  Clara  Eugenia, 
Regent  of  the  Netherlands,  had  been  left  a  widow  shortly 
before  Van  Dyck's  return  to  Antwerp,  and  had  embraced 
the  order  of  the  Poor  Clares,  adopting  their  religious  dress. 
In  this  dress  she  was  painted  several  times  by  Van  Dyck, 
and  several  examples  of  the  portrait  are  known,  the  kindly 
austerity  of  the  face  being  cleverly  enhanced  by  the  treat- 
ment of  the  white  and  grey  robes.  The  Regent  appointed 
Van  Dyck  to  be  her  court-painter  at  an  annual  salary  of 
250  gulden.  In  this  capacity  Van  Dyck  painted  many 
of  the  leading  personages  at  the  archduchess's  court,  and 
especially  the  commanders  of  the  Spanish  forces  of  the 
Netherlands.  Spinola,  the  hero  of  the  siege  of  Breda,  he 
had  already  painted,  and  next  Hendrik,  Comte  de  Berg  A, 
and  then  Francisco  de  Leganez^  Marques  de  Moncaday 
whose  equestrian  portrait  by  Van  Dyck  is  in  the  Louvre. 
Carlo  de  Colonna,  Ottavio  Piccolomini^  Italian  noblemen 
in  the  Spanish  service,  were  among  his  sitters,  as  were 
Jean  de  Montfort,  the  court  chamberlain,  the  Marques 
de  Mirabella,  Don  Alvarez  Bazan^  Marques  de  Santa 
Cruz,  and  Don  Emmanuel  Frockas  Pereira  y  Pi?nentel, 
Conde  di  Feria,  all  notabilities  of  the  Spanish  court. 
Wolfgang  Wilhelm,  Duke  of  Jiilich  and  Cleve,  who  had 
just  been  raised  to  the  independent  sovereignty  of  Newburg 
in  the  Palatinate,  was  an  eager  collector  of  Van  Dyck's 

5  3 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

paintings,  and  from  him  derive  many  of  the  renowned 
examples  of  Van  Dyck's  art  which  are  now  in  the  Munich 
Gallery.  The  great  local  families  of  Arenberg,  Ligne,  De 
Croy,Tassis,  names  still  famous  in  Austrian  history,  all  con- 
tributed to  swell  the  number  of  his  distinguished  sitters, 
many  of  them  being  ladies.  The  rich  merchants  of  Ant- 
werp were  painted  by  him,  such  as  Eberhard  Jabach  of 
Cologne, and  the  leading  citizens  in  the  Government, such 
as  Philippe  le  Roy^  Seigneur  de  Ravels  and  his  wife,  in  the 
Wallace  Collection.  Rubens  on  his  return  sat  again  to 
Van  Dyck,  as  did  his  fair  second  wife,  Helena  Fourment. 
The  full-length  portrait  of  Helena  in  a  black  dress  with  a 
feather-fan,  which  passed  from  the  Houghton  Collection  to 
the  Imperial  Collection  at  Petersburg,  where  it  is  usually 
attributed  to  Rubens,  is  said  to  have  been  painted  by  Van 
Dyck  to  fill  a  particular  space  in  one  of  the  rooms  in  the 
house  of  Rubens  at  Antwerp.  It  would  not  be  possible  to 
enumerate  strictly  the  whole  list  of  admirable  portraits  exe- 
cuted by  Van  Dyck  at  this  happy  period  of  his  existence. 
In  August  1 63 1  Marie  de'  Medicis,  Queen-Mother 
of  France,  took  refuge  in  the  Netherlands,  where  she  re- 
mained for  eight  years,  and  resided  at  Antwerp  for  some 
weeks.  The  queen  was  already  acquainted  with  Rubens, 
who  had  painted  for  her  the  great  series  of  paintings  for 
the  Palais  du  Luxembourg,  and  she  now  made  acquaint- 
ance with  Van  Dyck,  who  painted  more  than  one  portrait 
of  her.  She  was  afterwards  joined  by  her  favourite  son, 
Gaston,  Due  d'Orleans,  next  heir  at  the  time  to  the  throne 
of  France,  who  had  on  January  1632  married  Marguerite, 

54 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

sister  of  Charles,  Duke  of  Lorraine,  who  was  in  active  war- 
fare with  Louis  XIII.  of  France  and  Cardinal  Richelieu,  in 
which  Gaston  took  rather  an  ignoble  part.  The  Duke  of 
Lorraine,  defeated  in  the  field,  abandoned  his  country  to 
his  brother,  and  took  refuge  in  Brussels,  where  he  set  up 
a  kind  of  hostile  court,  aided  by  the  queen-mother,  and  by 
his  sister,  Marguerite  of  Orleans,  and  Henriette,  Princesse 
de  Phalsbourg.  Of  this  royal  circle  Van  Dyck  has  left 
several  portraits,  though  they  were  probably  not  painted 
before  1634.  At  some  time  Van  Dyck  paid  a  visit  to 
the  court  of  Prince  Frederick  Henry  of  Orange  and  his 
wife,  Amalia  van  Solms,  in  Holland,  and  painted  several 
pictures  for  them.  This  may  have  been  before  he  settled 
in  Antwerp,  but  the  style  of  painting  in  the  portraits  of 
the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Orange  suggests  a  later  date, 
perhaps  on  his  way  to  England.  It  must  have  been  on 
this  journey  to  Holland  that  Van  Dyck  paid  his  visit  to 
Frans  Hals  at  Haarlem,  which  has  become  famous,  and 
also  to  his  old  fellow-pupil,  Hendrik  du  Bois,a  one-armed 
painter,  who  had  settled  at  Rotterdam  with  his  wife, 
Helena,  daughter  of  Eland  Gysbrechts  Tromper  of  that 
city.  The  portraits  of  Du  Bois  and  his  wife,  which  were 
kept  together  in  English  collections  for  about  two  cen- 
turies, are  now  separated,  the  husband's  portrait  being  at 
Frankfurt,  the  wife's  in  the  Art  Institute  at  Chicago. 

The  attempts  to  induce  Van  Dyck  to  come  to  Eng- 
land in  the  service  of  King  Charles  I.,  which  had  ap- 
parently been  interrupted  by  the  death  of  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  were  soon  resumed.   The  Earl  and  Countess 

55 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

of  Arundel  were  now  again  in  favour,  and  naturally  anxious 
to  persuade  Van  Dyck  to  come.  Nicholas  Lanier,  one 
of  the  king's  most  trusted  agents,  had  shown  to  Charles 
the  portrait  of  himself,  painted  by  Van  Dyck  at  Genoa. 
Michel  le  Blon,  another  artist,  political  agent,  and  art- 
dealer,  whose  portrait  by  Van  Dyck  is  at  Amsterdam,  is 
said  to  have  also  recommended  the  painting  of  Van  Dyck. 
As  early  as  1629  Endymion  Porter,  a  great  favourite  at  the 
court  of  England,  was  negotiating  with  Van  Dyck  for 
a  painting  of  Rinaldo  and  Armida  on  behalf  of  King 
Charles  I.  The  queen-mother,  Marie  de1  Medicis,  may 
have  extolled  Van  Dyck  to  her  daughter,  Queen  Henrietta 
Maria,  in  England.  Rubens  was  now  back  at  Antwerp  in 
full  work,  and  at  no  time  was  Van  Dyck  able  to  stand  on 
the  same  level  as  his  great  master.  All  seemed  to  point 
to  a  new  opening  for  his  talents  at  the  court  in  London, 
where  he  could  have  no  rival.  The  final  impulse  seems 
to  have  been  given  through  that  shifty  schemer,  Sir  Bal- 
thasar  Gerbier,  an  agent  of  the  then  all-powerful  Richard 
Weston,  Earl  of  Portland,  for  whom  he  had  purchased  at 
Brussels  in  December  1631a  painting  of  the  Virgin  and 
Child  with  St.  Catherine^  which  Van  Dyck  repudiated 
as  his  work.  On  March  13,  1631/2,  Gerbier  wrote  to 
Weston  that  Van  Dyck,  who  had  wished  to  go  to  Eng- 
land, and  asked  him  to  speak  to  the  queen-mother  and  the 
archduchess  about  taking  their  portraits  over  to  England 
to  show  the  king, had  a  sudden  caprice  not  to  go ;  but  the 
same  day  Gerbier  wrote  to  King  Charles  I.  from  Brussels, 
that  Van  Dyck  was  there,  and  said  that  he  was  resolved  to 

56 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

go  over  to  England.  King  Charles  took  a  lively  interest 
in  the  arrival  of  Anthony  Van  Dyck.  Edward  Norgate, 
herald,  miniature-painter,  and  Clerk  of  the  Signet  to  the 
Crown,  a  protege  of  the  Earl  of  Arundel,  a  friend  of  Gerbier, 
and  a  relative  by  marriage  of  Nicholas  Lanier,  was  ap- 
pointed to  receive  and  lodge  Van  Dyck,  and  received  by 
warrant  fifteen  shillings  a  day  c  for  the  dyett  and  lodging 
of  Signior  Anthonio  Van  Dike  and  his  servants  ;  the  same 
to  begin  from  the  first  day  of  Aprill  just  to  continue  during 
the  said  Vandikes  residence  there.'  Sir  Francis  Winde- 
bank,  Secretary  of  State,  was  instructed  c  to  speak  with 
Inigo  Jones  concerning  a  house  for  Vandyck.'  A  house 
was  found  for  him  in  the  Blackfriars,  near  the  Thames, 
then  one  of  the  chief  causeways  of  London,  and  where  he 
would  be  unfettered  by  the  jurisdiction  of  the  London 
Guild.  Several  other  foreign  artists  were  already  resident 
in  the  same  quarter.  A  summer  residence  was  provided 
for  him  in  the  royal  palace  at  Eltham  in  Kent,  a  few  miles 
from  London. 

Van  Dyck  found  few  competitors  in  London.  Daniel 
Mytens,  the  court-painter,  was  still  employed  on  useful, 
though  rather  uninspired  portrait  work.  It  is  clear  that 
Mytens  was  not  actually  superseded,  but  that  he  continued 
to  paint  official  portraits  for  the  king  for  some  years  after 
Van  Dyck  arrived  in  England.  Eventually,  according  to 
tradition,  he  acknowledged  the  supremacy  of  Van  Dyck 
and  begged  for  leave  to  return  to  his  native  country. 
Cornelius  Jansen,  or  Johnson,  van  Ceulen,  in  spite  of  his 
Dutch  ancestry  and  name,  was  a  born  Londoner,  and 
h  57 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

always  regarded  himself  as  such.  This  excellent  artist 
may  be  looked  upon  as  the  first  native-born  artist  of  great 
merit  to  practise  in  England.  There  is  a  certain  sym- 
pathy of  feeling  between  his  portraits  and  those  by  Van 
Dyck.  Jansen's  style  was  popular  in  England,  and  Van 
Dyck  quickly  appropriated  and  assimilated  it,  and  by  his 
dazzling  brilliance  put  the  tender,  sensitive,  but  prosaic 
efforts  of  Cornelius  jansen  far  in  the  background.  Por- 
trait-painting had  degenerated  into  a  mere  trade,  an  em- 
ployment for  hack-artists  in  back  shops,  where  such 
portraits  were  turned  out  to  order  under  the  direction  of 
such  artist-publishers  as  John  de  Critz,  Robert  Peake, 
and  others.  The  trade  in  pictures  was  increasing,  and 
at  the  country  fairs  and  in  the  shop-windows,  portraits 
of  celebrities,  drolleries,  or  small  church  pictures  were 
always  to  be  found.  Van  Dyck  rescued  painting  in  Eng- 
land from  this  phase  of  mere  craftsmanship  and  restored 
it  to  the  position  of  a  Fine  Art. 

The  king  and  queen  lost  no  time  in  sitting  to  Van 
Dyck,  and  the  first  important  commission  seems  to  have 
been  the  great  Family  Piece  at  Windsor  Castle,  painted 
in  1632,  and  containing  portraits  of  the  king  and  queen 
with  their  two  eldest  children.  On  July  5,  1632,  the 
king  conferred  the  honour  of  knighthood  on  Anthony 
Van  Dyck  at  St.  James's  Palace,  and  appointed  him  prin- 
cipal painter-in-ordinary  to  their  majesties.  On  April 
20,  1633,  the  Lord  Chamberlain  was  ordered  to  provide 
a  chain  and  medal,  of  one  hundred  and  ten  pounds  value, 
to  be  presented  unto  Sir  Anthony  Van  Dyck.      In  the 

58 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

same  year  the  king  gave  the  painter  a  pension  of £200  per 
annum  paid  quarterly,  c  any  restraint  formerly  made  by 
our  late  dear  Father,  or  by  us,  for  payment  or  allowance 
of  Pension  or  Annuities  or  any  declaration,  significa- 
tion, Matter,  or  Thing  to  the  contrary  in  any  case  not- 
withstanding.' Van  Dyck's  breach  of  contract  with  King 
James  I.  was  thus  condoned  and  forgotten.  Numerous 
entries  occur  in  the  Privy  Seal  Payments  of  payments  to 
Van  Dyck  for  pictures  done  for  the  King.  The  portraits 
of  King  Charles  and  Queen  Henrietta  Maria  at  this  date 
are  gay  and  cheerful,  the  king  rather  stolid  but  very  de- 
bonnaire^  the  queen  a  sprightly  and  winning  brunette, 
both  of  them  attired  in  gay  colours,  their  hearts  full, 
apparently,  of  happiness  and  content. 

In  spite  of  the  honourable  position  occupied  by  An- 
thony Van  Dyck  at  the  court  of  Charles  I.,  he  did  not  lose 
sight  of  his  native  land,  or  of  the  chances  for  exercising 
his  art  there.  On  December  1,1633,  n^s  former  patroness, 
the  Archduchess  Isabella,  closed  her  long  and  useful 
life.  A  new  Regent  for  the  Spanish  Netherlands  had  to 
be  appointed,  and  King  Philip  IV.  of  Spain  selected  his 
younger  brother,  Ferdinand,  usually  known  as  the  Cardi- 
nal-Infant oi  Spain,  for  this  important  post.  Meanwhile  the 
regency  was  held  by  Thomas  of  Savoie-Carignan,  nephew 
to  the  late  Archduchess,  who  had  just  succeeded  Mon- 
cada  as  commander-in-chief  of  the  Spanish  forces  in  the 
Netherlands.  Van  Dyck  obtained  leave  to  go  over  to  Ant- 
werp to  settle  his  affairs.  The  queen  was  anxious  for 
his  brother  Theodorus  to  come  over  and  be  one  of  her 

59 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

chaplains,  but  he  could  not  be  persuaded.  On  March  28, 
1634,  Van  Dyck  acquired  a  property  at  Antwerp  in  the 
Seigneurie  of  Steen,  which  he  settled  the  following  April 
on  his  sister  Susanna. 

Meanwhile  a  large  concourse  of  friends  and  relatives 
assembled  at  Brussels  to  welcome  the  new  Regent.  There 
were  the  exiled  families  of  Orleans  and  Lorraine,  includ- 
ing the  fair  Beatrice  deCusance,Princesse  deCante-Croix, 
a  heroine  of  romance,  and  the  putative  wife  of  Charles  II., 
reigning  Duke  of  Lorraine.  Her  portrait  by  Van  Dyck  is 
one  of  the  chief  treasures  of  Windsor  Castle.  Van  Dyck 
painted  more  than  one  portrait  of  Thomas  of  Savoy,  includ- 
ing the  great  equestrian  portrait  now  in  the  royal  gallery  at 
Turin.  Van  Dyck  was  also  employed  to  paint  an  immense 
group  of  the  Town  Magistrates  of  Brussels,  which  was  un- 
fortunately destroyed  during  the  siege  of  Brussels  in  1695. 
The  painter  settled  in  a  house  close  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville 
in  Brussels,  with  the  sign  of c  Le  Paradis,'  and  there  awaited 
the  joyous  entry  of  the  new  Regent,  which  took  place  on 
November  4,  1634.  The  Regent  sat  to  Van  Dyck  for 
more  than  one  official  portrait. 

With  the  close  of  these  festivities  Van  Dyck  was  due 
back  in  England.  He  stopped  a  little  time  at  Antwerp, 
and  seemed  to  have  completed  there  the  large  painting  of 
the  Adoration  of  the  Shepherds  for  Termonde,  for  which 
he  had  received  a  commission  in  1631  before  he  left  for 
England.  Early  in  1635  he  was  back  in  London,  and 
resumed  his  duties  for  the  king  and  queen. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  portraits  of  King  Charles  I .  and  Queen  Henrietta 
Maria,  painted  by  Van  Dyck,  have  left  an  enduring 
mark  on  the  history  of  their  time.  It  may  even  be 
said  that  history  itself  is  written  in  the  portraits  of  the 
king  and  queen,  their  children,  and  the  gay  court  around 
them,  bravely  clad  in  bright  colours  and  lace, unconscious, 
and  yet  apparently  not  without  some  premonition  in  their 
eyes,  of  the  great  tragic  drama  on  which  the  curtain  was 
soon  to  rise.  Charles  and  Henrietta  Maria  showered 
favours  on  Van  Dyck.  They  constantly  visited  him  in  his 
house  at  Blackfriars,  and  a  special  causeway  was  con- 
structed to  enable  the  royal  party  to  land  from  their  barge 
and  enter  the  painter's  house  privately.  The  portraits  of 
Charles  I.  are  world-famous.  In  addition  to  the  great 
Family  Piece,  and  the  double  portrait  of  Charles  I.  re- 
ceiving a  Wreath  from  HenriettaMaria,  painted  by  Van 
Dyck  before  his  return  to  Antwerp  and  Brussels  in  1634, 
he  now  completed  many  other  portraits  of  the  king  and 
queen  and  their  children.  Chief  among  these  were 
Charles  I.  on  a  White  Horse  attended  by  M.  St.  Antoine, 
the  great  picture  at  Windsor  Castle,  painted  in  1635  and 
modelled  on  his  earlier  portrait  of  Anton  Giulio  Brignole- 
Sala  at  Genoa;  Charles  /.,  standing  figure  in  Parliament 

61 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Robes,  painted  in  i636,now  in  St.  George's  Hall  at  Wind- 
sor Castle;  Charles  I.  on  a  Dun  Horse,  painted  about 
1637,  and  based  on  the  famous  portrait  of  Charles  V.  at 
the  battle  of  Miihlberg  by  Titian,  the  original  sketch  of 
which  is  in  the  royal  collection  at  Buckingham  Palace, 
while  the  great  amplified  version,  after  having  belonged  to 
the  Archduke  Ferdinand  of  Austria,  at  Tervueren,  near 
Brussels,  was  acquired  thence  by  the  great  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough, for  his  gallery  at  Blenheim  Palace,  and  has 
now  found  a  permanent  home  in  the  National  Gallery; 
Charles  I.  standing  by  his  horse,  attended  by  an  equerry 
[Le  Roi  a  la  chasse),  now  in  the  Louvre  at  Paris.  These 
are  but  the  principal  paintings  of  the  king ;  Van  Dyck 
painted  him  over  and  over  again,  in  armour,  at  whole 
length,  or  with  his  hand  on  a  globe,  or  on  a  helmet,  or  in 
the  black  robes  of  St.  George,  as  in  the  painting  at  Dres- 
den, which  appears  to  be  a  faithful  copy  of  the  painting  by 
Van  Dyck  which  perished  in  the  great  fire  at  Whitehall. 

One  of  the  most  famous  portraits  of  Charles  I.  is  the 
portrait  in  three  positions  at  Windsor  Castle,  which  was 
painted  in  1637,  and  sent  to  Rome  to  the  celebrated 
sculptor,  Bernini,  to  make  a  bust  from.  This  triple  por- 
trait seems  to  be  based  either  on  the  well-known  triple 
portrait  of  Cardinal  Richelieu  by  Philippe  deChampaigne 
in  the  National  Gallery,  or  else  perhaps  on  the  triple  self- 
portrait  of  Lorenzo  Lotto,  which  Van  Dyck  may  have  seen 
in  Italy.  The  story  is  well  known  how  that  Bernini  re- 
marked on  the  volto  funesto  or  fateful  aspect  of  the  king, 
and  the  ominous  circumstances  which  attended  it  on  its 

62 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

arrival  in  England  have  been  often  recorded.  It  was  so 
much  admired  that  Henrietta  Maria  wished  to  have  a  bust 
made  of  herself,  and  had  three  separate  portraits  of  herself 
painted  by  Van  Dyck  for  a  similar  purpose.  Owing  to 
the  outbreak  of  the  civil  war,  the  paintings  were  never  sent 
to  Italy;  two  of  them  remained  at  Windsor  Castle,  and 
the  third  was  given  by  the  king  to  Lord  Denbigh. 

Queen  Henrietta  Maria  herself  owes  her  place  in  his- 
tory to  a  great  extent  to  the  brush  of  Van  Dyck.  The 
little  French  princess,  brunette  and  ?nignonne,  even  if,  as 
her  cousin  the  Electress  Sophia  alleged,  her  figure  was 
crooked  and  her  teeth  wronged  her  mouth,  received  from 
the  painterjust  that  degree  of  flattery  which  softens  defects, 
but  retains  the  general  character  without  ignoring  them 
altogether.  Not  even  in  the  portraits  by  Van  Dyck  does 
Henrietta  Maria  appear  as  a  merely  beautiful  woman ;  she 
is  always  the  queen,  and  in  a  gallery  of  portraits  her  like- 
ness is  easily  distinguished  by  the  unconscious  possession 
of  this  peculiar  attribute.  She  appears  standing  at  whole 
length  in  white  silk,  in  yellow  or  amber,  in  blue,  some- 
times with  a  black  hat  and  her  favourite  dwarf  attendant, 
Jeffrey  Hudson,  or  a  little  female  dwarf,-  sometimes  the 
queen  is  seen  to  the  knees,  in  black,  yellow,  or  blue,  usu- 
ally holding  a  bunch  of  roses  in  her  hands;  sometimes  she 
is  seated,  but  the  charm  is  always  present,  and,  when  ab- 
sent, is  a  proof  that  the  painting  in  question  never  came 
under  Van  Dycks  own  eye.  It  is  interesting  to  compare 
the  likenesses  of  the  king  and  queen  painted  by  Van 
Dyck  with  the  somewhat  homelier,  and  probably  more 

63 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

accurate,  presentments  of  them  by  Daniel  Mytens.  The 
portraits  by  Mytens  are  deeply  interesting,  but  they  fail  to 
fascinate  like  the  portraits  by  Van  Dyck.  Mytens  con- 
tinued to  paint  for  the  king  long  after  Van  Dyck's  ap- 
pointment as  court-painter,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  the  official  portraits,  presented  by  the  king  to  his 
ministers  and  friends,  were  usually  entrusted  to  Mytens, 
and  the  services  of  Van  Dyck  reserved  for  more  special 
occasions. 

The  commissions  from  the  king  and  queen  were  by 
no  means  confined  to  portraits,  as  in  addition  to  the  Rin- 
aldo  and  Armida  ordered  by  Endymion  Porter,  and  the 
Cupid  and  Psyche  at  Hampton  Court  Palace,  it  has  been 
handed  down,  on  the  authority  of  Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  that 
Van  Dyck  painted  for  King  Charles  the  Dance  of  the 
Muses j  Apollo  flaying  Marsyas,  Bacchanals,  and  Ve?ius 
and  Adonis.  One  of  the  principal  versions  of  Mary, 
Christ,  and  many  Angels  dancing,  now  in  the  Hermitage 
at  Petersburg,  was  a  commission  from  Queen  Henrietta 
Maria. 

Next  to  the  portraits  of  the  king  and  queen  came  the 
portraits  of  their  children.  It  was  one  of  the  first  tasks 
entrusted  to  the  painter  after  his  return  to  London  in 
1635.  Three  children  now  adorned  the  royal  nursery, 
Charles,  Prince  of  Wales,  aged  five,  Princess  Mary, 
aged  three,  and  James,  Duke  of  York,  not  yet  two  years 
old.  These  three  children  are  the  subject  of  the  delight- 
ful group,  painted  by  Van  Dyck,  which  the  queen  sent  as  a 
present  to  her  sister  Christina  of  Savoy,  and  which  is  now 

64 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

in  the  gallery  at  Turin.  It  is  amusing  to  read  from  the 
queen's  letter,  that  this  painting,  one  of  Van  Dyck's  most 
perfect  achievements  in  the  management  of  colour  and 
grace,  gave  displeasure  to  the  king,  because  the  children 
were  painted  without  their  pinners.  This  mistake  was 
rectified  in  the  better-known  group  of  the  same  three  chil- 
dren, now  at  Windsor  Castle,  of  which  various  replicas 
and  innumerable  copies  exist.  During  the  next  few  years 
the  nursery  received  new  additions:  Princess  Elizabeth, 
born  in  December  1635,  and  Princess  Anne  in  March 
1637.  Van  Dyck  painted  the  five  children  for  the  king, 
the  original  being  apparently  the  painting  also  now  at 
Windsor  Castle.  He  also  painted  the  little  Prince  of 
Wales  in  armour  for  the  queen,  of  which  various  versions 
exist,  one  of  the  best  being  at  Welbeck  Abbey. 

In  matters  of  art  and  external  display,  the  fashionable 
world  of  London  has  always  shown  itself  disposed  to  imi- 
tate and  follow,  rather  than  to  choose  and  select  on  its  own 
account.  Van  Dyck,  the  charming  painter  with  the  lan- 
guorous eyes,  the  auburn  hair,  and  the  long  white  hands 
became  the  rage,  and  all  courtiers,  male  and  female, 
flocked  to  him  as  sitters  for  their  portraits.  Society  ranged 
itself  in  great  family  groups,  such  as  the  Stuarts,  nearly 
related  to  the  king,  comprising  the  Duke  of  Richmond 
and  Lenox  and  his  family;  the  Villiers  cousins,  sprung 
from  the  brilliant  Duke  of  Buckingham  and  his  brothers ; 
the  Herberts,  of  whom  the  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  Mont- 
gomery was  Lord  Chamberlain,  and  very  powerful  at  the 
court;  the  Cecils,  Stanleys,  Sackvilles,  Spencers,  Russells, 

65 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

and  Cavendishes.  Noteworthy  also  are  the  two  brothers 
Robert  Rich,  Earl  of  Warwick,  and  Henry  Rich,  Earl 
of  Holland,  sons  of  that  Lady  Rich  whom  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  addressed  as  c  Stella.'  Special  mention  must  be 
made  of  Van  Dyck's  intimate  friend  Sir  Kenelm  Digby, 
and  his  wife  Venetia,  whose  death  in  1633  is  commemo- 
rated by  the  allegorical  portrait  of  her,  painted  by  order 
of  her  husband  to  vindicate  his  wife's  honour. 

In  the  first  year  of  the  sojourn  of  Van  Dyck  in  Eng- 
land, London  society  was  excited  by  the  wedding  of  the 
brilliant  young  Philip,  Lord  Wharton,  then  only  nineteen 
years  of  age,  to  the  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Lindsey.  Van 
Dyck  painted  the  young  bridegroom  as  a  shepherd  in  gold 
and  brown,  in  the  famous  portrait  now  in  the  Hermitage 
Gallery  at  Petersburg.  Five  years  later  he  painted,  for 
the  same  Lord  Wharton,  an  interesting  series  of  portraits 
of  the  Wharton  and  Cary  families,  with  whom  Van  Dyck 
seems  to  have  been  specially  associated,  some  of  which 
group  passed,  with  the  earlier  portrait  of  Philip,  Lord 
Wharton,  into  the  Houghton  Collection  and  the  Hermi- 
tage at  Petersburg ;  among  the  series  was  the  full-length 
portrait  of  Arthur  Goodwin,  father  of  Lord  Wharton's 
second  wife,  now  at  Chatsworth,  one  of  Van  Dyck's  most 
brilliant  studies  in  gold,  brown  and  amber  colouring.  The 
minor  lights  at  the  court  are  represented  by  such  noted 
persons  as  the  Killigrews,  Thomas  Carew,  and  Sir  John 
Suckling,  the  poets  ;  Endymion  Porter,  and  Inigo  Jones ; 
domestic  politics  by  such  figures  as  the  Speakers,  Sir  John 
Finch,  Sir  Thomas  Hanmer,  and  Chaloner  Chute ;  while 

66 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

history  is  written  large  in  the  famous  portraits  of  Arch- 
bishop Laud  and  Thomas  Wentworth,  Earl  of  Strafford. 
Among  all  the  brilliant  throng  of  admirers  none  were 
more  constant  in  their  support  than  Van  Dyck's  original 
patrons,  the  Earl  and  Countess  of  Arundel. 

All  seemed  gay  and  festive  in  this  gallant  assembly, 
but  there  was  an  undercurrent  of  ominous  foreboding. 
The  great  struggle  between  the  Crown  and  the  Commons 
had  begun,  and  clouds  were  threatening  on  the  horizon. 
The  actual  breaking  of  the  storm  was  never  witnessed  by 
Van  Dyck,  but  many  of  his  brilliant  sitters  were  destined 
for  harder  fare  than  court  life  at  Whitehall,  and  to  lay 
down  their  lives  for  their  king  at  Naseby,  Edgehill,  or 
Marston  Moor,  or  in  unknown  skirmishes,  or  sometimes, 
like  the  beautiful  boy-colonel,  Lord  Francis  Villiers,  with 
his  back  against  a  tree  and  nineteen  wounds  on  his  front, 
until  even  his  enemies  were  moved  to  sympathetic  grief. 
In  Van  Dyck's  portraits  these  young  men  seem  to  have 
some  foreboding  of  their  doom,  although  this  look  was 
little  more  in  reality  than  an  echo  of  Van  Dyck's  own 
temperament,  and  his  natural  tendency  to  blend  melan- 
choly with  febrile  activity.   It  is  not  surprising  to  find  that 
under  this  pressure  of  work  the  portraits  of  Van  Dyck 
show  a  tendency  to  deteriorate.    More  and  more  did  he 
leave  to  the  band  of  assistants  which  he  had  grouped 
round   him.     Like   Rubens   at   Antwerp,  his  atelier  in 
London  became  a  picture-manufactory.    English  clients 
were  easily  pleased,  as  they  have  always  been,  and  it  was 
sufficient  to  be  in  the  fashion.    The  life  led  by  the  painter 

67 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

would  have  taxed  the  health  of  many  stronger  men.  Be- 
ginning work  early  in  the  morning,  he  had  a  succession 
of  sitters,  each  with  their  allotted  time.  Some  of  these  he 
retained  to  dinner,  and  then  again  to  work.  The  evening 
was  given  up  to  pleasure,  to  banqueting,  and  the  society 
of  fair  ladies,  of  whom  some  paid  court  to  the  painter, 
while  the  painter  himself  distributed  his  attentions. 
There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  tradition,  that  he 
and  Sir  Kenelm  Digby  wasted  time,  health,  and  money 
on  futile  researches  in  chemistry  and  astrology.  Such 
a  life  meant  great  expenses,  and  as  these  increased,  the 
painter  found  increasing  difficulty  in  obtaining  payments 
from  the  royal  purse.  When  the  king  remonstrated  with 
him  on  his  extravagance,  the  painter  retorted  that  it  was 
impossible  to  keep  open  house  for  friends  and  mistresses 
without  such  great  expenses.  We  see  Van  Dyck  in  his 
latest  portraits  becoming  thin  and  wan  in  his  face ;  in  the 
well-known  portrait  of  himself  pointing  to  a  sunflower,  he 
turns  and  shows  his  gold  chain  of  office  with  an  air  of 
deliberate  suggestion.  A  feverish  and  restless  activity 
pervades  his  work. 

So  anxious  did  the  king  and  queen  become  lest  the 
painter  should  be  ruined  by  his  life  of  hard  work  and 
pleasure,  that  they  thought  it  would  be  well  for  him  to 
enjoy  the  domestic  comforts  of  an  English  home  with  a 
wife  of  his  own.  Mary  Ruthven,  a  granddaughter  of  the 
Earl  of  Gowrie,  was  a  protegee  of  the  court,  and  a  marriage 
was  arranged  between  her  and  the  painter,  with  great 
social  advantages  to  Van  Dyck.    The  story  goes  that  his 

68 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

ruling  mistress,  Margaret  Lemon,  tried  to  revenge  herself 
on  the  painter  by  mutilating  his  right  hand.  The  marriage, 
however,  took  place,  just  before  a  new  and  important  event 
occurred,  which  altered  the  whole  course  of  Van  Dyck's 
life  in  London. 

On  May  30,  1640,  Rubens  died  at  Antwerp,  still  in 
the  vigour  of  artistic  industry  and  creative  power,  at  what 
seems  the  early  age  of  sixty-three.  There  was  now  only 
one  person  who  could  possibly  take  command  of  the  great 
picture-manufactory  at  Antwerp,  and  this  was  Anthony 
Van  Dyck.  Some  of  the  school  had  found  suitable  work 
elsewhere — Gaspar  de  Crayer  with  the  Imperial  Court  at 
Brussels,  Justus  van  Egmont  at  Paris,  where  he  had  been 
taken  by  Rubens  to  work  on  the  great  paintings  of  the 
Palais  du  Luxembourg.  Of  the  remainder,  Jordaens  was 
looked  upon  as  the  best  painter,  and  deservedly  so,  but  by 
temperament  and  general  character  he  would  have  been 
incapable  of  leadership.  Theodor  van  Thulden,  Abraham 
van  Diepenbeck,and  the  restwere  capable  of  good  second- 
rate  work.  Van  Dyck  was  the  only  possible  successor. 
A  large  commission  had  been  given  by  the  King  of  Spain 
to  Rubens  and  was  awaiting  completion.  The  Regent, 
Ferdinand,  told  his  brother  that  he  had  sent  for  Van  Dyck 
from  England  to  complete  the  work. 

This  was  the  great  opportunity  in  Van  Dyck's  career. 
He  had  already  shown  symptoms  of  discontent  with  his 
position  in  London,  and  a  tendency  to  wrangle  about 
payments  and  commissions.  His  health  was  undermined 
by  the  strain  of  his  life  of  work  and  pleasure.    His  head 

69 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

was  turned,  as  it  would  appear,  by  this  new  position,  and 
he  sent  over  word  to  the  Regent  that  if  he,  Van  Dyck, 
consented  to  come  over  to  Antwerp,  he  must  not  be  ex- 
pected merely  to  finish  the  incomplete  work  of  Rubens, 
but  must  begin  the  work  over  again,  as  entirely  his  own. 
So  strange  was  his  attitude,  that  at  Antwerp  they  looked 
on  him  as  archifou.  Eventually  the  King  of  Spain's  com- 
mission was  handed  over  to  Gaspar  de  Crayer,  and  a  fresh 
commission  promised  to  Van  Dyck,  who  after  all  made 
up  his  mind  to  come  over  to  Antwerp.  Affairs  in  England 
had  come  to  a  straining-point,  and  the  court  was  removed 
from  London,  never,  as  it  turned  out,  to  settle  back  again 
under  Charles  I.  and  Henrietta  Maria. 

In  October  1640  Van  Dyck  was  at  Antwerp  on  St. 
Luke's  day,  and  was  entertained  with  great  pomp  and 
honour  by  his  brother-artists  and  the  members  of  the 
Academy  of  Painting  ;  he  was  nominated  eeredeken  or 
honorary  dean  of  the  Guild  of  St.  Luke,  an  honour  which 
had  only  previously  been  conferred  upon  Rubens.  It  is 
clear  that  Van  Dyck  made  up  his  mind  to  quit  the  service 
of  King  Charles  I.,  which  had  obviously  become  one  of 
precarious  profit,  and  settle  at  Antwerp  under  the  aegis  of 
the  King  of  Spain.  Before  doing  so  there  was,  however, 
another  venture  to  be  made.  Throughout  life  it  was  the 
ambition  of  Van  Dyck  to  meet  Rubens  in  friendly  rivalry 
and  compete  on  the  same  ground.  The  great  series  of 
paintings  executed  by  Rubens  for  Marie  de'  Medicis  in 
the  Palais  du  Luxembourg  at  Paris  were,  and  are  still,  the 
object  of  widespread  admiration.  The  paintings  by  Rubens 

70 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

for  the  ceiling  of  the  Banqueting  House  at  Whitehall  were 
also  famous.  Van  Dyck  had  at  one  time  hopes  himself  of 
decorating  the  walls  of  the  Banqueting  House  with  a  series 
of  paintings  representing  theOrder  of  the  Garter,  and  even 
prepared  designs,  one  of  which  has  been  preserved.  Lack 
of  money  and  political  pressure  prevented  Charles  I.  from 
indulging  in  this  expensive  scheme,  and  indeed  put  an  end 
to  Inigo  Jones's  great  plans  for  the  reconstruction  of  the 
palace  at  Whitehall.  This  was  a  bitter  disappointment  to 
Van  Dyck,  and  when  he  heard  that  the  King  of  France 
was  contemplating  a  new  series  of  paintings  in  the  Palace 
of  the  Louvre,  he  went  to  Paris  and  proffered  his  services, 
which  he  thought  could  hardly  be  refused.  At  Paris, 
however,  he  excited  the  hostility  of  the  French  painters 
to  himself  and  his  art,  and  the  commission  was  given  to 
Nicolas  Poussin  and  Simon  Vouet.  This  rebuff  seems  to 
have  seriouslyaffected Van  Dyck.  He  returned  to  London 
broken  in  health  and  spirits,  as  he  was  required  by  the 
king  to  assist  at  the  last  flicker  of  the  brilliant  court,  of 
which  the  painter  had  been  so  conspicuous  a  member.  In 
May  1 64 1  a  marriage  was  celebrated  between  the  king's 
eldest  daughter,  Mary,  and  the  young  William,  Prince 
of  Orange,  son  of  Prince  Frederick  Henry  and  Amalia  van 
Solms,  who  had  formerly  been  among  the  patrons  of  Van 
Dyck.  The  bride  and  bridegroom  were  but  boy  and  girl, 
and VanDyck painted  them  atwhole  length, hand-in-hand, 
for  King  Charles  I.,  in  a  picture  which  was  taken  over  to 
Holland  by  their  son,  King  William  III.,  and  is  now  in  the 
Ryksmuseum  at  Amsterdam. 

7i 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Van  Dyck's  health,  however,  gave  great  cause  for 
anxiety.  He  returned  to  Antwerp  in  October  1641,  to 
make  arrangements  for  his  removal  from  England,  and  in 
November  was  again  in  Paris.  There  he  was  offered  a  com- 
mission by  Cardinal  Mazarin,  but  was  too  ill  to  accept  it. 
His  wife  was  about  to  bear  a  child  in  London,  and  c  Signor 
Antonio '  returned  across  the  sea,  sick  and  weary,  and, 
as  it  turned  out,  for  the  last  time.  King  Charles  was 
sincerely  alarmed  at  the  state  of  the  painter's  health,  and 
sent  his  own  physician,  Sir  Theodore  Mayerne,  to  attend 
him,  promising  him  a  handsome  reward  if  he  could  save 
the  painter's  life.  It  was,  however,  too  late.  On  December 
1,  1 64 1,  Lady  Van  Dyck  gave  birth  to  a  daughter,  who 
was  named  Justiniana;  on  December  4  Van  Dyck  made  his 
will,  and  on  December  9  he  breathed  his  last,  aged  but 
forty-two  years,  eight  months,  and  seventeen  days.  Into 
so  short  a  space  had  he  compressed  the  activity  and  stress 
of  a  notable  career.  His  infant  daughter  was  baptized  on 
the  very  day  of  her  father's  death.  Two  days  later  the  great 
painter  was  laid  to  rest  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.  His  friend 
and  neighbour,  Nicasius  Rousseel,  the  king's  jeweller, 
was  one  of  those  who  attended  the  funeral,  and  noted 
that  he  was  buried  near  the  tomb  of  John  of  Gaunt  in 
the  choir  of  the  cathedral.  A  monument  was  erected  to 
his  memory,  but  both  grave  and  monument  were  con- 
sumed in  the  great  fire  of  1666. 


CHAPTER    VI 

ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK  made  his  will  on  his 
/j^  deathbed  on  the  4th  of  December  1641.  His 
property  at  Antwerp,  which  had  been  left  in  the 
hands  of  his  sister,  Susanna,  was  left  to  her  with  a  con- 
dition that  she  should  make  provision  from  it  for  his 
illegitimate  daughter,  Maria  Theresia,  evidently  born  in 
Antwerp,  and  for  his  sister  Isabella ;  after  the  decease  of 
all  these  parties  he  made  his  lawful  daughter,  then  only 
three  days  old,  his  heir.  The  rest  of  his  estate,  including 
the  debts  owing  to  him  by  the  King  of  England,  he  left 
to  his  wife  and  daughter  in  England.  Failing  all  these 
parties,  the  property  was  to  be  divided  among  the  chil- 
dren of  his  sister  Catherina,  wife  of  Adriaen  Diercx,  at 
Antwerp.  No  time  was  lost  in  proving  the  will,  which 
was  effected  four  days  after  the  painter's  death,  but  actual 
settlement  of  the  estate  does  not  appear  to  have  taken 
place  till  1663,  if  then.  Lady  Van  Dyck,  a  young 
widow  with  a  considerable  fortune,  was  much  courted, 
and  gave  her  hand,  as  a  second  husband,  to  Sir  Richard 
Pryse  of  Gogerddan,  in  Montgomeryshire,  a  Welsh 
baronet.  She  only  survived  her  first  husband  for  upwards 
of  four  years,  and  after  her  death  in  1645,  ncr  relative, 
Patrick  Ruthven,  addressed  a  petition  to  Parliament  on 

k  73 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

behalf  of  Van  Dyck's  infant  child.  From  this  petition  it 
appears  that  Van  Dyck's  studio  at  Blackfriars  had  been 
raided  by  his  assistants  and  servants,  his  collection  of 
pictures  and  works  of  art  made  away  with,  and  the  greater 
part  smuggled  over  to  the  Continent  by  one  Richard 
Andrew. 

Justiniana,  the  infant  daughter  of  Van  Dyck,  was 
married  in  1653,  when  only  twelve  years  old,  to  Sir  John 
Stepney  of  Prendergast  in  Pembrokeshire.  She  had  been 
baptized  as  a  Protestant,  as  already  stated,  on  the  day  of 
her  father's  death,  and  for  this  reason  her  aunt  Susanna, 
the  beguine,  in  her  will  made  at  Antwerp  in  1649,  pro- 
vided for  her  niece  on  condition  of  her  coming  to  Ant- 
werp and  changing  her  religion.  Her  uncle,  Theodorus, 
the  priest,  came  to  England  to  fetch  his  niece  in  1654, 
but  found  her  already  married.  Lady  Stepney  took  the 
required  step  in  16  60,  when  she  came  to  Antwerp  and  was 
received  into  the  Roman  Church,  being  baptized  and 
married  afresh.  In  1666  she  inherited,  on  shares  with  her 
half-sister  Maria  Theresia,  the  property  left  by  her  father 
in  Belgium.  Two  of  her  daughters  became  abbesses  in 
a  convent  at  Brussels,  and  lived  to  a  great  age.  Lady 
Stepney  seems  to  have  inherited  herself  some  skill  in 
painting.  Her  son  succeeded  to  the  baronetcy,  which 
became  extinct  in  1725,  the  lineage  of  Van  Dyck  then 
being  divided  between  the  families  of  Gulston  and 
Cowell,  the  latter  being  represented  at  the  present  day 
by  Miss  Katherine  Meriel  Cowell-Stepney. 

After  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy  in  England,  a 

74 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

petition  to  the  Crown  was  presented  by  Justiniana,  Lady 
Stepney,  who  was  granted  an  annual  pension  of  two 
hundred  pounds.  This  pension  was,  however,  stopped, 
probably  on  account  of  Lady  Stepney's  change  of  religion, 
and  further  petitions  were  addressed  by  her  to  the  king, 
stating  that  '  the  Estate  of  her  Father  had  been  wrong- 
fully kept  from  her  and  Imbezled  by  those  with  whom 
the  same  was  Intrusted  in  time  of  the  late  war.'  These 
petitions  seem  to  have  been  successful  after  1670,  when 
the  pension  was  again  paid.  Lady  Stepney  meanwhile 
took  a  second  husband,  one  Martin  de  Carbonell,  and  as 
late  as  1703  her  heirs  were  still  attempting  to  recover 
debts  due  to  the  estate  of  Sir  Anthony  Van  Dyck.  The 
painter's  other  daughter,  Maria  Theresia,  married  Gabriel 
Esserts,  Drossart  of  Bouchout,  and  dying  in  1697,  left 
descendants  to  represent  the  painter  at  Lierre  in  Belgium. 
The  famous  banker  and  picture  collector,  Eberhard 
Jabach  of  Cologne,  who  knew  Van  Dyck  well,  has  left 
valuable  notes  of  his  method  of  work.  From  an  inscrip- 
tion on  the  back  of  a  portrait  of  Thomas  Parr,  who  died 
in  London  in  1635  at  the  reputed  age  of  one  hundred 
and  forty-eight  years,  it  appears  that  Jabach  said  Van 
Dyck  painted  the  portrait  in  his  London  house.  The 
painter  told  him  that  in  early  life,  when  working  for  his 
livelihood  (poursa  cuisine) ,  he  studied  the  art  of  painting 
quickly  and  on  several  portraits  at  once.  By  carefully 
regulating  the  time  and  duration  of  each  sitting  he  was 
able  to  keep  a  great  number  of  paintings  in  hand,  and 
complete  an  almost  incredible  amount  of  work.      He 

75 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

drew  quickly,  and  the  accessories  were  sketched  on  paper 
and  handed  over  to  his  pupils  and  assistants  to  work  up  in 
the  portraits.  All  this  method  he  learned  in  the  atelier 
of  Rubens  at  Antwerp.  In  England,  however,  the  de- 
mands of  fashion  led  him  to  leave  more  and  more  of  the 
work  to  his  pupils.  The  series  of  formulas  and  conven- 
tions in  their  hands  became  monotonous,  and  the  artistic 
value  of  the  portraits  correspondingly  less.  This  can  be 
traced,  for  instance,  in  the  hands,  which  were  originally 
drawn  by  VanDyck  with  great  care  and  elegance,  not  with- 
out certain  mannerisms,  but  all  of  which  when  imitated 
by  his  assistants  became  exaggerated  and  displeasing. 
Between  April  1632  and  December  1641  Van  Dyck 
spent  little  more  than  six  and  a  half  years  in  London. 
It  is  obvious  that  of  the  immense  number  of  portraits  attri- 
buted to  Van  Dyck  in  this  country,  only  a  small  fraction 
can  be  attributed  to  the  hand  of  the  painter  himself. 
He  had  a  number  of  capable  assistants,  Jean  de  Reyn  of 
Dunkirk,  David  Beck,  afterwards  painter  to  the  Queen  of 
Sweden,  Jan  Baptist  Gaspars,  Remigius  van  Leemput, 
William  Dobson,  James  Gandy,  and,  as  it  would  appear, 
Peter  Lely  during  the  last  year  of  Van  Dyck's  life.  Copies 
and  replicas  were  issued  from  the  studio  under  Van  Dyck's 
own  supervision.  From  a  correspondence  between 
Eleanor  Wortley,  Countess  of  Sussex,  to  Ralph  Verney,  it 
appears  that  the  lady  sat  rather  unwillingly  to  Van  Dyck, 
whose  portrait  of  herself  she  criticises  as  being  too  fat,  and 
having  more  jewels  than  she  really  possessed.  It  was  in  a 
blue  gown  with  pearl  buttons  and  cost  ^50,  and  a  copy 

76 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

was  made  at  the  time  in  the  painter's  studio  at  a  cost 0^8. 
During  the  interregnum  there  was  ample  time  for  copy- 
ing Van  Dyck's  pictures  both  in  London  and  at  Antwerp, 
whither  most  of  his  pictures  had  been  smuggled  away. 
Remigius  van  Leemput  and  Henry  Stone  seem  to  have 
been  the  most  employed  as  copyists.  Others,  such  as 
John  Weesop,  are  known  to  tradition  as  having  been  able 
to  copy  paintings  by  Van  Dyck  in  a  quite  indistinguish- 
able manner.  The  Lanier  family  were  capable  of  doing 
the  same,  as  were  Van  Dyck's  own  friends  and  contem- 
poraries, George  Geldorp,  Jan  van  Belcamp,  and  Adriaen 
Hanneman.  The  greatest  care  must  therefore  be  exer- 
cised in  accepting  every  painting  attributed  to  Van 
Dyck  in  England  as  entirely  by  his  own  hand,  or  even  the 
joint  work  of  himself  and  his  pupils.  William  Dobson, 
the  best  known  of  these,  succeeded  Van  Dyck  as  court- 
painter  to  Charles  I.,  and  imitated  quite  successfully,  but 
without  servile  copying,  the  manner  of  his  master.  David 
Beck  carried  his  experiences  of  the  Van  Dyck  School  away 
to  Stockholm;  there  he  executed  some  good  portraits  of 
the  Swedish  royal  family  and  nobility,  good  but  rather 
frigid  exercises  in  the  Van  Dyck  formulas,  as  illustrated 
by  the  full-length  portrait  of  Count  Oxenstiern,  formerly 
in  the  collection  of  Sir  William  Abdy.  Jean  de  Reyn 
returned  to  Dunkirk,  where  he  enjoyed  considerable  local 
reputation. 

From  Edward  Norgate,  Sir  Theodore  Mayerne,  and 
others,  various  notes  have  been  handed  down  of  Van 
Dyck's  methods  in  painting  and  his  choice  of  colours  and 

77 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

pigments,  in  which  he  exercised  great  care,  with  conspicu- 
ous success  as  to  the  durability  of  his  portraits.  From 
these  notes  it  appears  that  Van  Dyck  used  very  little  oil 
with  his  colours,  and  preferred  a  quickly  drying  surface 
in  the  manner  of  tempera.  Sometimes  the  painting  is  very 
slight,  and  details  worked  up  with  drawing  strokes.  At 
all  times  his  paintings  had  a  cool  and  silvery  tone,  which 
has  often  been  obscured  and  falsified  by  the  over-applica- 
tion of  yellow  varnishes.  It  was  probably  the  dryness  of 
surface  between  the  painting  and  the  varnish  which  has 
caused  his  pictures  to  suffer  so  much  from  cold  and  damp 
in  churches.  The  consummate  skill  shown  in  the  draw- 
ing, the  lack  of  effort,  the  effect  of  the  drawing  strokes, 
and  the  silvery  tone  of  the  portraits  were  no  doubt  what 
appealed  so  much  in  Van  Dyck's  work  to  Thomas  Gains- 
borough, always  a  passionate  admirer  of  his  great  pre- 
decessor. The  rules  and  formulas  of  the  Van  Dyck  studio 
were  carefully  preserved  and  transmitted  to  his  successors, 
and  their  influence  can  be  traced  up  to  the  present  day. 
Until  the  arrival  of  the  Dutch  element  in  painting  under 
William  III.  and  the  rise  of  the  English  school  under 
Hogarth,  the  Van  Dyck  tradition  reigned  supreme.  It 
was  revived  again  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  artistically  a 
lineal  descendant  of  Van  Dyck,  and  by  Gainsborough. 
In  the  nineteenth  century  the  influence  of  Van  Dyck  was 
submerged  by  that  of  the  more  modern  French  schools, 
but  in  more  recent  years  this  influence  has  shown  a  ten- 
dency to  reassert  itself.  In  Paris,  greatly  through  the 
influence  of  Largilliere,  the  academical  schools  of  the 

78 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth  centuries  were  pro- 
foundly influenced  by  the  traditions  of  Rubens  and  Van 
Dyck.  Charles  le  Brun,  the  ruler  of  the  French  Academy, 
even  advised  Hyacinthe  Rigaud,  when  young,  not  to  go  to 
Italy,  but  to  stay  at  home  and  study  nature  and  Van  Dyck. 
It  may  be  impossible  to  place  Van  Dyck  on  the  same  level 
with  his  great  masters  Titian  and  Rubens,  with  the  painter 
with  whom  in  temperament  he  has  most  in  common, 
Raphael,  or  with  his  great  contemporaries,  Velazquez, 
Hals,  and  Rembrandt.  Few  painters,  however,  have 
exercised  so  wide-reaching  and  so  lasting  an  influence  as 
Van  Dyck,  and  this  alone  would  entitle  him  to  a  place 
among  the  immortals  in  the  history  of  the  Fine  Arts. 

Van  Dyck,  in  fact,  left  a  lasting  influence  in  each  of  the 
three  great  cities  in  which  he  spent  his  life.  His  influence 
in  London  on  British  art  has  already  been  indicated.  At 
Genoa  he  left  a  thriving  school  of  imitators,  whose  work 
has  in  some  cases  been  unduly  attributed  to  Van  Dyck. 
At  Antwerp  he  was  the  model  for  a  whole  school  of 
portrait-painters,  skilled  artists  like  Thomas  Willeborts, 
PieterTyssen,  Franchoys,andTheodor  Boeyermans,  many 
of  whose  portraits  very  nearly  approach  the  excellence  of 
Van  Dyck,  but  who  must  be  regarded  as  imitators  rather 
than  as  pupils.  The  author  of  a  manuscript  life  of  Van 
Dyck,  preserved  in  the  Louvre,  believed  to  be  one  Francis 
Mols  of  Antwerp,  writing  within  a  century  of  the  painter's 
death,  alludes  to  the  great  number  of  spurious  paintings 
attributed  to  Van  Dyck  already  existing,  and  distinguishes 
three  classes  of  copies:  those  made  in  the  painter's  studio  by 

79 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

his  best  assistants  and  approved  by  him,  those  made  there 
by  his  pupils  as  mere  practice  exercises,  and  those  which 
were  made  after  his  death  by  miscellaneous  artists  without 
any  authority.  At  Antwerp  and  Genoa  therefore,  as  in 
England,  great  care  should  be  exercised  in  attributing  a 
portrait  for  certainty  to  the  hand  of  Van  Dyck,  since  his 
memory  and  reputation  have  suffered  most  unjustly  by 
the  malpractices  of  ignorance  and  dishonesty. 

The  same  difficulty  must  be  met  in  dealing  with  the 
drawings  attributed  to  Van  Dyck.  He  was  a  rapid  and 
brilliant  sketcher,as  is  shown  by  the  famous  Sketch-Book 
at  Chatsworth,  which  has  already  been  mentioned.  His 
method  in  the  book  of  pen  drawings  washed  in  sepia, 
something  in  the  style  of  Guercino,  is  one  which  lends 
itself  to  imitation,  and  drawings  by  Van  Dyck  occur  in 
facsimile  repetitions,  which  are  very  disconcerting.  The 
quality  of  his  completed  historical  paintings  does  not  do 
justice  to  the  fertility  of  his  invention,  for  many  drawings 
of  sacred  history  and  mythology,  which  may  be  accepted 
as  genuine,  exist,  and  seem  to  indicate  a  fecundity  of 
imagination,  the  employment  of  which  required  a  more 
vigorous  creative  energy  than  Van  Dyck  possessed,  as 
compared  with  Rubens.  Van  Dyck  has  left  some  inter- 
esting studies  in  landscape,  though  withina  much  narrower 
horizon  of  observation  than  Rubens.  A  considerable 
number  of  portrait  studies  on  bluish-grey  paper  have 
been  preserved,  which  may  for  the  most  part  be  assumed 
to  be  the  notes  made  by  him  in  person,  which  were  after- 
wards worked  up  by  his  assistants ;  but  these  drawings  all 

80 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

require  careful  expert  examination  to  prove  that  they  are 
the  actual  work  of  the  master  himself. 

A  number  of  portrait-drawings  exist,  which  were  exe- 
cuted for  a  work  which  has  added  justly  to  the  greatness 
of  Van  Dyck's  reputation.  Among  the  greatest  achieve- 
ments of  Rubens  was  his  establishment  under  his  own 
superintendence  of  a  special  school  of  engravers,  mainly 
employed  in  reproducing  his  designs.  In  this  school  were 
trained  some  of  the  great  masters  of  the  engraver's  art, 
Lucas  Vorsterman,  Paulus  Pontius,  the  brothers  Scheltius 
and  Boetius  van  Bolswert,  the  De  Jodes,  and  other  artists 
who  raised  engraving  to  a  position  in  the  front  rank  of  the 
arts  at  Antwerp.  Van  Dyck  was  naturally  familiar  with 
this  school, and  acquainted  with  all  the  engravers.  Where- 
as, however,  they  were  all  reproductive  artists,  Van  Dyck 
himself  tried  his  hand  at  the  original  work  of  a  painter- 
etcher.  In  the  practice  of  this  delightful  art  Van  Dyck 
was  a  pioneer  north  of  the  Alps.  Rembrandt,  his  junior 
in  age  by  seven  years,  although  working  as  a  painter- 
etcher  at  the  same  time  as  Van  Dyck,  did  not  produce  any 
of  his  great  works  in  etching  till  after  Van  Dyck's  death. 
It  is  not  likely  that  Van  Dyck  was  acquainted  with  the  not 
very  successful  attempts  of  Albrecht  Diirer  in  this  art,  or 
with  the  then  unknown  dry-points  of  the  so-called  Master 
of  the  House  book.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  probably 
acquainted  with  the  etchings  of  the  Carracci  and  of  Par- 
megiano,  and  certainly  with  those  of  Jacques  Callot,  the 
painter-etcher  from  Lorraine.  The  two  earliest  examples 
of  Van  Dyck's  etching  are  from  paintings  by  Titian, 

L  8 1 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

apparently  in  the  collection  of  Lucas  van  Uffel  at  Genoa. 
At  all  events,  after  Van  Dyck's  return  to  Antwerp  he 
seems  to  have  been  associated  with  Pontius  and  the  Bols- 
werts,  and  especially  with  Lucas  Vorsterman,  after  that 
engraver's  return  from  England,  in  an  enterprise  of  peculiar 
interest. 

This  venture  was  a  series  of  engravings  from  portraits 
painted  or  drawn  by  Van  Dyck,  on  the  lines  of  similar 
portrait -series  published  at  Antwerp  during  the  latter 
part  of  the  sixteenth  century.  It  is  possible  that  the  scheme 
may  have  been  due  to  the  Antwerp  publisher,  Martin  van 
den  Enden,  rather  than  to  the  painter  himself.  The  scheme 
of  this  Iconographie  comprised  three  series  of  engraved 
portraits,  all  after  Van  Dyck,  the  first  containing  princes 
and  distinguished  military  commanders,  the  second,  states- 
men and  men  of  learning,  the  third,  artists  and  amateurs 
of  art.  Eighty  plates  were  issued  in  the  first  edition,  fifty- 
two  of  which  belonged  to  the  third  class.  The  process  of 
publication  appears  to  have  been  as  follows  :  a  sketch  in 
black  chalk  was  made  by  Van  Dyck  himself,  and  this  was 
handed  over  to  a  skilled  assistant,  highly  trained  in  this 
business,  who  worked  up  the  sketch  into  a  complete  paint- 
ing in  grisaille,  indicating  all  the  values  necessary  to  guide 
the  engraver.  From  these  grisaille  drawings  the  engraving 
was  ultimately  made.  A  great  number  of  the  grisaille 
drawings  exist,  usually  attributed  to  the  hand  of  Van  Dyck 
himself.  It  was  indeed  the  tradition  of  the  Rubens  school 
to  commence  a  work  by  such  studies  en  camaieu,  and  the 
assistants  in  the  studio  were  called  upon  to  produce  them. 

82 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Van  Dyck  had  done  this  himself  in  earlier  years,  and  so 
was  a  practised  hand.  Most  of  these  grisaille  portraits 
are  admirably  executed,  but  do  not  surpass  the  skill  which 
might  be  expected  of  a  practitioner  trained  in  the  en- 
graving school  of  Rubens.  If  not  unworthy  of  Van  Dyck's 
name,  there  is  no  obvious  necessity  for  attributing  them 
to  him,  while  many  of  them  must  have  been  executed  at 
Antwerp  during  Van  Dyck's  absence  in  England. 

Van  Dyck  was,  however,  led  to  take  a  share  in  the  en- 
graver's work  himself,  and  left  a  series  of  original  etched 
portraits,  which  are  among  the  most  highly  prized  treasures 
of  the  engraver's  art.  These  etchings  stand  alone  for  their 
marvellous  delicacy  and  dexterity  of  execution.  Van  Dyck 
seems  to  have  executed  his  etchings,  as  models  and 
groundwork  for  the  completed  engravings,  and  in  no  work 
of  his,  painting  or  otherwise,  does  he  attain  so  supreme  a 
height  as  an  original  artist.  The  words  of  Mr.  Philip  G. 
Hamerton,  written  nearly  fifty  years  ago,  sum  up  the 
position  of  Van  Dyck  in  the  estimation  of  connoisseurs  of 
etching:  cHis  aims  were  few,  his  choice  of  means  instinc- 
tively wise  and  right,  his  command  of  them  absolute,  his 
success  complete'  {Etching  and  Etchers^  1868).  The 
portrait  of  himself,  as  left  by  him  with  only  the  head  com- 
pleted, and  the  portrait  of  Snyders  are  specially  remarkable 
for  refined  expression  as  well  as  technical  skill. 

After  the  death  of  Van  Dyck,  the  eighty  plates  com- 
pleted passed  into  the  hands  of  another  Antwerp  pub- 
lisher, Gillis  Hendricx,  who  also  acquired  the  fifteen 
plates  etched  by  Van  Dyck  himself.   Some  of  these  etched 

83 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

plates  were  entrusted  to  Pontius  and  Vorsterman  and  com- 
pleted with  the  burin,  as  was  probably  Van  Dyck's  own 
intention,  although  thereby  the  delicacy  of  Van  Dyck's 
work  was  obliterated  and  destroyed.  They  were  then 
added  to  the  series,  with  six  more,  which  brought  the  series 
up  to  one  hundred.  A  new  edition  was  issued  in  1645, 
with  Van  Dyck's  head  as  a  frontispiece,  which  from  its  title 
and  the  number  of  its  plates  is  usually  spoken  of  as  the 
Centum  Icones  of  Van  Dyck.  Later  editions  were  pub- 
lished with  additional  plates,  which  have  no  bearing  on 
the  painter's  life. 

Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the  fact  that 
Anthony  Van  Dyck  was  born  in  the  same  year  as 
Velazquez,  but  even  those  who  would  refuse  to  give  the 
Flemish  painter  equal  rank  with  the  Spanish  must  admit 
that  the  name  of  Van  Dyck  strikes  a  note  in  many  a  human 
heart  which  would  remain  silent  at  the  name  of  Velaz- 
quez. At  no  time  did  Van  Dyck  succeed  in  his  great 
ambition  of  outrivalling  and  eclipsing  his  great  master, 
Rubens,  but  it  is  possible,  if  not  an  obvious  fact,  that  the 
spectator  will  pass  with  relief  and  comfort,  say  at  the 
Munich  Gallery,  from  a  room  dedicated  to  the  perplexing 
and  rather  overwhelming  creations  of  Rubens  to  the 
majestic  certainty  and  repose  of  Van  Dyck.  In  pure 
technical  skill  and  brilliancy  of  execution  Van  Dyck  may 
not  rank  so  high,  in  a  painter's  estimation, as  his  great  con- 
temporary, Frans  Hals,  but  the  high  estimation  in  which 
Hals  himself  held  Van  Dyck  as  a  painter  is  founded  on  a 
well-attested  tradition.    As  a  path-finder,  a  thinker,  and 

84 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

investigator  of  problems  of  light,  Van  Dyck  falls  far  short  of 
another  great  contemporary,  Rembrandt ;  but  even  here, 
when  studying  Rembrandt's  career  as  a  fashionable  por- 
trait-painter in  early  life  at  Amsterdam,  one  is  from  time 
to  time  reminded  of  Van  Dyck.  Why  is  it,  then,  that  while 
depending  so  much  upon  an  accumulation  of  formulas  of 
pose,  light,  expression,  leading  to  careless  mannerisms  in 
details  like  the  hands,  or  the  curtained  background,  Van 
Dyck  should  have  obtained  and  secured  so  great  a  reputa- 
tion? The  answer  can  only  be,  that  it  was  due  to  a  genius, 
inborn  and  cultivated  at  the  earliest  possible  age,  trained 
in  an  admirable  school,  deliberately  inured  to  industry ;  a 
genius  capable  of  seeing  at  a  glancewhatwas  best  and  most 
advantageous,  seizing  the  moment  and  turning  it  to  the 
best  advantage ;  a  genius,  however,  which  from  the  very 
force  of  its  intensity  was  destined  inevitably  to  burn  itself 
out  at  an  early  age.  Titian  might  live  and  work  to  a  great 
and  glorious  old  age,  Rubens  might  have  done  the  same, 
but  there  could  have  been  no  old  age  for  Van  Dyck,  any 
more  than  there  could  have  been  for  Raphael.  Forty  years 
of  life  and  an  imperishable  achievement — ;  those  whom 
the  Gods  love  die  young! 

Anthony  Van  Dyck  was  unconsciously  one  of  the 
makers  of  history.  Antwerp,  Genoa,  London,  all  testify 
to  this.  At  Antwerp  he  illustrated  the  closing  scenes  in 
the  great  world-drama  of  Spanish  rule  in  the  Netherlands. 
The  rise  of  the  House  of  Orange  at  the  expense  of  Spain 
was  consummated  by  the  marriage  of  the  boy  William  II. 
with  the  child-daughter  of  Charles  I.  and  Henrietta  Maria, 

85 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

and  this  event  was  commemorated  by  the  last  painting  of 
importance  executed  by  Van  Dyck.  Ferdinand,  the  Car- 
dinal-Infant of  Spain,whose  joyous  entry  into  Brussels  had 
been  attended  by  Van  Dyck,  was  the  last  of  the  Spanish 
royal  family  to  govern  the  Netherlands,  as  his  brother,  King 
Philip  IV.,  was  the  last  of  the  Hapsburgs  to  really  govern 
Spain.  Genoa  owes  much  of  its  great  tradition  to  the  por- 
traits of  its  governing  aristocracy,  which  owed  their  crea- 
tion to  Van  Dyck's  magic  brush.  England  reads  in  Van 
Dyck'sportraits  the  grim  forebodings  of  the  death-struggle 
between  King  and  Parliament,  which  the  painter  did  not 
live  to  see.  Charles  and  Henrietta  Maria  are  stamped  on 
history  by  Van  Dyck's  portraits.  Strafford  and  Laud  live 
for  posterity  through  the  same  agency.  It  is  curious  to 
note  that  Van  Dyck's  residence  synchronised  so  often  with 
the  closing  days  of  peace  and  prosperity  in  the  country 
where  he  happened  to  be.  The  Netherlands  were  soon  to 
be  the  cockpit  of  Europe;  Genoa  had  a  hard  fight  to  main- 
tain its  independence  as  a  Republic.  Venice  was  about 
to  enter  upon  the  last  of  her  great  struggles  with  the 
Turkf  or  supremacy  in  the  East.  Even  Mantua's  deserted 
court  was  soon  to  be  plunged  into  a  welter  of  conflict  and 
desolation ;  while  England  trembled  on  the  brink  of  the 
greatest  revolution  in  its  history.  Looking  back  on  the 
stirring  events  of  the  seventeenth  century,  posterity  has 
probably  read  too  much  into  the  fateful  look  with  which 
so  many  of  Van  Dyck's  portraits  seem  inspired.  There  is 
a  shadow  about  every  throne,  no  matter  how  brilliant  its 
surroundings,  a  melancholy  about  all  the  glamour  of  a 

86 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

court.  High-bred  restraint  breeds  an  atmosphere  of  dis- 
dain, the  consciousness  of  a  gulf,  which  cannot  be  bridged, 
between  appearance  and  reality.  Van  Dyck's  English 
sitters  are  no  mere  posers,  no  play-actors ;  they  feel  their 
roles  in  life ;  and  in  looking  on  them  one  can  understand 
why  so  many  English  gentlemen  rode  to  death  at  Naseby 
or  Marston  Moor  with  the  same  excitement  and  insou- 
ciance as  a  modern  English  sportsman  rides  to  hounds. 

With  women  Van  Dyck,  like  most  great  portrait- 
painters,  was  less  successful.  Fashion  is  a  cruel  tyrant  and 
levels  its  victims  too  often  to  the  same  degree  of  insipidity. 
A  woman's  beauty  is  the  hardest  thing  to  depict,  and  few 
of  Van  Dyck's  sitters  would  probably  come  up  to  a  modern 
photographic  standard.  Character  is  wanting  in  the  por- 
traits, mainly  because  it  was  wanting  in  the  originals.  It 
is  better  for  court  ladies  not  to  be  clever,  and  Lucy  Percy, 
Countess  of  Carlisle,  whose  portrait  was  painted  more  than 
once  by  Van  Dyck,  is  an  illustration  of  the  danger  caused 
by  a  clever  woman.  One  must  not  therefore  blame  Van 
Dyck,  if  his  portraits  of  English  women  seem  to  lack 
character  and  vitality.  If  fashion  be  foolish,  and  the  votaries 
of  fashion  more  foolish  still,  the  twentieth  century  cannot 
afford  to  throw  any  stone  at  the  seventeenth. 

Posterity  therefore  owes  a  great  debt  to  Sir  Anthony 
Van  Dyck,  which  is  fully  justified  by  the  increasing  value 
attached  to  his  best  works.  The  highest  price  ever  paid 
for  a  painted  portrait  has  been  that  paid  for  the  great  por- 
trait of  Elena  Grimaldi,  Contessa  Cattaneo,  now  in  Mr. 
Widener's  collection  at  New  York.   England,  which  owes 

87 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

so  much  to  this  painter's  skill,  might  well  remember  that 
the  painter's  body  once  reposed  beneath  the  roof  of  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral,  and  that  his  ashes  are  mingled  with  its 
soil,  together  with  those  of  John  of  Gaunt  and  other 
national  heroes.  Should  it  not  be  a  reproach  that  of  this 
event  no  record  has  as  yet  been  placed  in  the  great 
cathedral,  which  stands  over  the  last  resting-place  of 
Anthony  Van  Dyck  ? 


ANTHONY    VAN     DYCK 

TWENTY-FIVE  PLATES  IN  COLOUR,  SELECTED 

AND  EXECUTED  UNDER  THE  SUPERVISION 

OF  THE  MEDICI  SOCIETY 


M 


NOTE 

In  making  a  selection  of  twenty-five  plates  in  colour  to  illus- 
trate the  work  of  Anthony  Van  Dyck,  it  has  been  thought 
better  to  select  paintings  which  serve  to  illustrate  the  many- 
sidedness  of  the  painter's  career,  rather  than  to  rely  on  paintings 
which  are  already  well  known  and  have  attained  world-wide 
popularity.  Special  thanks  are  therefore  due  to  those  private 
owners  who  have  kindly  allowed  special  reproductions  to  be 
made  of  the  paintings  in  their  possession. 

The  Publishers  specially  desire  to  acknowledge  their  obli- 
gations to 

Duke  of  Devonshire 

'  Arthur  Goodwin,'  Chatsworth. 

'  Lord  Falkland,'  Devonshire  House,  London. 

Duke  of  Portland 

'  Duke  of  Newcastle,'  Welbeck  Abbey. 

Duke  of  Westminster 

'  Virgin,  Child,  and  St.  Catherine,'  Grosvenor  House,  London. 
'Vandyke  with  a  Sunflower,'  Grosvenor  House,  London. 

Lady  Wantage 

'  Queen  Henrietta  Maria.' 

Duke  of  Newcastle 

4  Rinaldo  and  Armida,'  Clumber. 
'Sir  William  Killigrew,'  Clumber. 

Earl  Fitzwilliam 

'Strafford  and  his  Secretary,'  Wentworth  Woodhouse. 

Lieut.-Col.  Sir  G.  L.  Holford,  K.C.V.O.,  CLE. 

'  Marchesa  Balbi,'  Dorchester  House,  London. 

Messrs.  Knoedler 

'  Lord  and  Lady  Derby,'  Bond  Street,  W. 


PORTRAIT  OF  ANTHONY  VAN 
DYCK,  AS  A  BOY 

ROYAL  ACADEMY  OF  FINE  ARTS,  VIENNA 

THERE  are  few  painters  with  whose  personal  ap- 
pearance posterity  is  so  familiar  as  Anthony  Van 
Dyck.  His  own  self  was  always  a  favourite  ob- 
jetc  of  study,  so  that  an  interesting  series  of  iconographic 
studies  is  presented  by  Van  Dyck's  portraits  of  himself. 
In  this  he  resembled  his  great  contemporary,  Rembrandt. 
The  earliest  portrait  of  Van  Dyck  must  be  the  bust  por- 
trait in  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  at  Vienna.  The  young 
painter  has  depicted  himself  almost  in  profile  to  the  right, 
turning  his  head  to  look  at  the  spectator  with  a  keen, 
roguish  expression.  Traces  of  a  sensitive,  passionate  nature 
can  be  seen  in  the  full, rather  sensual  lips,  the  refined,  well- 
shaped  nose,  and  the  large  eye-sockets.  The  auburn  hair 
falls  in  loose,  but  apparently  carefully  trained,  locks  over 
his  ears,  temples  and  forehead.  The  physiognomy  of  an 
artist  is  at  once  apparent. 

Van  Dyck  used  himself  as  a  model  in  several  of  his 
early  paintings.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  instance  is 
the  Dcedalus  and  Icarus^  belonging  to  Earl  Spencer  at 
Althorp,  in  which  the  young  Icarus,  with  the  beautiful 

N 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

nude  torso  of  adolescent  youth,  clearly  gives  the  likeness 
of  the  young  Van  Dyck.  The  same  type  appears  again  in 
the  St.  Sebastian  paintings  of  this  early  period,  such  as 
the  two  different  renderings  of  the  subject  in  the  Picture 
Gallery  at  Munich.  It  is  again  repeated  in  the  painting 
of  Paris  as  a  Shepherd 'in  the  Wallace  Collection,  in  that 
of  the  Piping  Shepherd  at  Madrid,  and  is  evident  in  the 
portrait  of  Van  Dyck  in  the  Town  Gallery  at  Strassburg. 
All  of  these  portraits  must  have  been  painted  before  his 
first  visit  to  Italy.  During  the  period  of  his  residence  in 
Italy,  up  to  the  time  of  his  return  to  Antwerp,  Van  Dyck 
painted  several  portraits  of  himself,  all  conforming  to  the 
same  type,  slightly  older  and  more  conscious,  more  ela- 
borately posed,  and  not  without  a  graceful  affectation. 
Numerous  versions  of  these  portraits  exist.  One  of  the 
best,  a  bust  showing  the  right  hand  only,  is  the  property 
of  the  Trustees  of  the  National  Gallery,  by  whom  it  has 
been  deposited  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  In  this 
portrait  the  painter  wears  a  ring  on  the  little  finger  of  the 
right  hand,  and  the  same  portrait  on  a  larger  scale,  to  the 
knees,  with  the  same  accessories,  is  in  the  collection  of  the 
Duke  of  Grafton.  A  somewhat  similar  portrait,  but  in  a 
different  attitude  showing  both  hands,  is  in  the  Hermitage 
at  Petersburg.  Another  version,  seen  to  the  waist  only 
with  one  hand,  shows  the  painter  in  a  silk  cloak  and  wear- 
ing the  heavy  gold  chain  which  is  stated  to  have  been 
given  to  him  by  Ferdinando  Gonzaga,  Duke  of  Mantua. 
In  all  these  portraits  Van  Dyck  appears  with  smooth 
cheeks  and  the  appearance  of  youth. 


II 
THE   HOLY   FAMILY 

IMPERIAL  GALLERY,  VIENNA 

THIS  is  one  of  the  earliest  renderings  of  the  Holy 
Family  by  Anthony  Van  Dyck,  and  has  a  vivacity 
of  its  own,  which  is  very  characteristic  of  the 
painter.  The  Virgin,  a  comely  maiden,  in  the  manner  of 
Raphael,  is  clothed  in  a  scarlet  robe,  and  very  dark  blue 
mantle  spread  over  her  knee.  The  infant  Christ  sits  on 
her  lap,  his  legs  partially  covered  by  a  white  cloth.  Rest- 
ing his  left  hand  on  the  Virgin  Mother,  he  lifts  the  right 
hand  extended  to  touch  the  face  of  St.  Joseph,  who  is 
standing  on  the  left,  and  seems  to  be  protesting  against  the 
familiarity.  The  fair,  tously-haired  child  was  a  favourite 
model  of  Van  Dyck's. 

St.  Joseph  is  evidently  drawn,  if  not  from  Rubens  him- 
self, from  a  model,  whose  head  reappears  in  a  great  many 
early  paintings  by  Van  Dyck,  in  the  Samson  and  Delila 
at  Vienna,  the  Brazen  Serpent  at  Madrid,  the  Pentecost 
at  Berlin,  and  elsewhere.  This  Holy  Family  at  Vienna 
shows  much  of  the  Rubens  influence,  but  is  already  suf- 
fused with  the  warmth  and  passion  of  the  south,  of  Titian 
and  Raphael.   It  contains,  moreover,  some  of  the  favourite 

o 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

formulas  adopted  by  Van  Dyck,  notably  the  white  cloth, 
reflecting  light  about  the  picture,  and  enhancing  the 
warm  ruddy  flesh  of  the  infant  Christ. 

The  picture  was  formerly  in  the  collection  of  the 
Emperor  Charles  VI.  early  in  the  eighteenth  century. 


Ill 

PORTRAIT-GROUP  OF  AN  ARTIST 
WITH  HIS  WIFE  AND  CHILD 

THE  HERMITAGE,  PETERSBURG 

AMONG  the  paintings  of  Van  Dyck's  youth  at  Ant- 
jf\  werp  are  several  family-groups,  for  the  most  part 
of  his  friends  and  acquaintances.  The  family-group 
was  not  an  invention  of  Van  Dyck,  but  rather  of  Cornells 
de  Vos,  and  Van  Dyck's  grouping  and  early  handling  is 
so  much  akin  to  those  of  De  Vos,  that  it  is  difficult  to  be 
quite  certain  to  which  painter  certain  groups  should  be 
assigned.  The  group  from  Petersburg  is  clearly  the 
work  of  Van  Dyck,  and  reveals  his  peculiar  temperament, 
or  sensitiveness,  which  is  somewhat  lacking  in  the  more 
pedestrian  works  of  his  elder  contemporary  and  rival. 
The  group  of  husband,  wife  and  child  has  for  long  passed 
as  the  portraits  of  Frans  Snyders,  the  animal  painter  and 
intimate  friend  of  Van  Dyck,  with  his  wife  and  child, 
but  it  obviously  does  not  represent  Snyders,  whose  face 
is  well  known  in  more  than  one  admirable  portrayal  by 
Van  Dyck.  It  may  possibly  represent  Jan  Wildens,  the 
landscape-painter,  one  of  Rubens's  most  valued  assistants, 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

and  his  family,  but  the  resemblance  between  the  man  in 
the  Petersburg  group  and  the  portraits  of  Wildens  at 
Vienna  and  Cassel  is  far  from  being  convincing.  In  any 
circumstances,  it  represents  one  of  Van  Dyck's  immediate 
comrades  before  he  left  for  Italy. 

The  group  shows  rather  more  skilful  composition 
than  is  usual  with  Van  Dyck,  and  with  slight  modifica- 
tions might  easily  be  converted  into  a  Holy  Family.  The 
father,  auburn-haired,  stands  behind,  leaning  his  right  arm 
on  a  chair,  the  hand  being  exceptionally  well  studied  and 
painted  in  this  picture.  The  mother,  with  homely  face 
and  apple  cheeks,  sits  in  an  arm-chair  with  her  child  on 
her  knees.  She  is  dressed  in  the  stiff,  though  not  unbecom- 
ing black  dress  of  the  period,  with  gold-embroidered 
stomacher  and  the  heavy  wheel-ruff  which  was  worn  by 
the  well-to-do  bourgeoisie.  Her  hair  is  drawn  back  tight 
from  the  forehead  over  the  head,  and  fastened  by  a  small, 
gold-embroidered  cap  at  the  back  of  the  head. 

The  child  is  one  of  Van  Dyck's  most  delightful  crea- 
tions, unrivalled  even  by  such  a  child  as  Frans  Hals  could 
paint.  A  chubby  Flemish  infant,  the  little  girl  sits  on  her 
mother's  knee,  clad  in  a  dull  gold  and  grey  striped  jacket,  a 
green  skirt  trimmed  with  gold,  white  pinafore,wide  cambric 
ruff  with  lace  edge,  and  a  cap  of  similar  material.  Round 
her  neck  is  a  necklace  of  coral  beads,  and  in  her  hands 
she  holds  a  doll  dressed  in  a  similarly  elaborate  fashion. 
The  child  looks  up  towards  her  father,  as  if  desirous  of 
attracting  his  attention.  Van  Dyck's  children  are  always 
delightful,  but  he  never  excelled  those  of  his  earliest  days, 


ARTIST  WITH  HIS  WIFE  AND  CHILD 

the  child  with  its  mother  in  the  portrait  belonging  to  Earl 
Brownlow  at  Ashridge,  or  the  two  children  in  the  group 
belonging  to  Sir  Frederick  L.  Cook  at  Richmond.  The 
lady's  costume  marks  the  date,  as  there  is  a  whole  series  of 
portraits  of  women  painted  by  Van  Dyck  in  the  same 
iashion  of  dress.  This  picture  belonged  in  1770  to  M. 
La  Live  de  Jully  in  Paris,  when  it  was  bought  for  Mme. 
Groenbloedt  of  Brussels,  and  immediately  resold  to  the 
Empress  Catherine  of  Russia.  It  has  always  enjoyed  high 
repute,  and  was  lent  by  the  Emperor  of  Russia  to  the 
Brussels  International  Exhibition  of  19 10.  It  has  been 
engraved  more  than  once,  and  has  established  itself  among 
the  most  popular  works  of  the  painter. 


IV 

THE  REDEEMER  WITH  THE   FOUR 
PENITENT  SINNERS 

AUGSBURG  GALLERY 

THE  fervid  youth  of  Anthony  Van  Dyck  finds  a  vent 
in  certain  paintings,  for  the  most  part  of  sacred 
subjects,  in  which  the  influence  of  Rubens  and 
Titian  is  shown  blended,  like  the  joining  of  two  mighty 
river  streams  into  one  splendid  current.  It  is  not  difficult 
to  follow  Van  Dyck  through  the  earlier  stages  of  his 
career.  As  a  boy  he  attracts  notice  by  his  portrait-studies 
of  heads,  mostly  models  from  the  Rubens  School,  if  not 
actual  studies  of  his  friends  and  relatives.  These  model- 
studies  will  be  found  utilised  in  many  of  his  early  paint- 
ings, and  are  obviously  based  on  the  Rubens  teaching. 
Van  Dyck  then  sets  to  work  to  study  the  nude,  and  here, 
though  starting  on  the  lines  of  Rubens,  he  deviates  from 
them,  in  that  he  shows  little  liking  for  the  aspect  of  the 
nude  which  appealed  so  much  to  Rubens,  the  live,  pal- 
pitating vitality  of  the  flesh,  and  its  reality.  Van  Dyck 
at  quite  an  early  age  shows  a  preference  for  the  Italian 
treatment  of  the  nude  in  masses  of  light  and  form,  ideal- 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

ised  rather  than  realised,  the  nude  of  Titian  and  Cor- 
reggio.  Van  Dyck,  moreover,  shows  an  innate  shrinking 
from  the  exuberant  nudity  of  the  Flemish  female  form, 
in  which  Rubens  took  an  almost  excessive  interest.  His 
early  nudes  are,  for  the  most  part,  studies  of  muscular 
torsos  and  limbs  from  models,  and  when  he  tackles  a 
subject  like  yupiter  and  Antiope,  he  seems  to  be  in  some 
way  out  of  his  element,  rather  like  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
in  later  days.  The  nude  is  carefully  studied,  often  bril- 
liantly executed,  but  seldom  seems  to  be  felt  and  under- 
stood as  it  was  by  Rubens  and  Titian. 

With  the  help  of  these  studies  Van  Dyck  built  up  a 
series  of  paintings,  which  are  admirable  examples  of  the 
painter's  art,  but  would  hardly  perhaps  have  won  for  Van 
Dyck  a  place  in  the  front  rank.  The  types  are  all  bor- 
rowed from  Rubens,  and  in  most  cases  the  compositions 
as  well.  The  type  of  Jesus  Christ,  also,  as  the  Redeemer 
is  Titian's  type,  translated  into  Flemish  by  Rubens,  and 
transcribed  by  Van  Dyck.  It  is  the  sentiment,  passionate 
or  religious,  which  Van  Dyck  is  able  to  infuse  into  his 
early  paintings,  which  makes  even  what  he  borrows  so 
entirely  his  own. 

It  seems  to  have  been  during  his  early  days  at  Genoa 
that  he  executed  most  of  his  paintings  of  this  class. 
Motives  are  to  be  found,  borrowed  from  his  Italian  sketch- 
book, which  can  hardly  be  dated  before  his  Italian  journey. 
The  setting  is  Titianesque  and  Italian,  the  colour  often 
rich  and  golden,  deeper  and  warmer  than  the  Rubens 
tradition  at   Antwerp.      Of  these  paintings,  that  of  the 


REDEEMER  WITH  FOUR  PENITENT  SINNERS 

Redeemer  with  the  Four  Penitent  Sinners  in  the  Augs- 
burg Gallery  is  a  good  and  little-known  example.  Here 
the  type  of  Christ  is  that  of  Titian's  ( Christo  della 
Moneta,'  seen  through  Rubens  spectacles  ;  while  the 
types  of  the  four  sinners,  St.  Mary  Magdalene,  St.  Peter, 
the  Repentant  Thief,  and  the  Prodigal  Son,  are  easily 
recognisable  among  Van  Dyck's  early  models.  There  is 
a  simplicity  of  construction  about  this  picture,  which 
shows  it  to  be  an  early  work,  preceding  some  time  in  date 
the  more  highly  elaborated  versions  of  a  similar  subject, 
the  Virgin  and  Child  with  the  Three  Penitents  in  the 
Kaiser-Friedrich  Museum  and  the  Louvre,  in  which  the 
principal  motive  is  directly  borrowed  from  Titian. 


■BMunHnnm 


PORTRAIT  OF 
THE  MARCHESA  BALBI 

LIEUT.-COL.  SIR  GEORGE  L.  HOLFORD,  K.C.V.O., 
DORCHESTER  HOUSE,  LONDON 

VAN  DYCK  at  Genoa  was  one  of  the  landmarks  in 
the  history  of  art.  The  painter  was  fortunate  in 
the  moment  of  his  arrival.  Genoa  was  a  proud 
city,  governed  by  an  oligarchy  of  great  reigning  families. 
As  the  chief  seaport  of  the  Mediterranean  Genoa  was  a 
formidable  rival  to  Venice,  the  Queen  of  the  Adriatic. 
Genoa  still  retained  her  hard-won  independence,  and,  like 
Venice,  the  city  offered  a  more  liberal  field  for  welcoming 
the  foreigner  to  come  and  reside  and  trade  within  her 
borders.  The  visit  of  Rubens  had  left  a  state  of  pleasur- 
able excitement  among  local  artists,  and  the  arrival  of  his 
most  brilliant  pupil  and  assistant,  Anthony  Van  Dyck, 
was  an  event  of  capital  importance.  Van  Dyck  soon  won 
his  way  by  his  art  and  his  engaging  personality  into  the 
great  palaces  of  the  Genoese  aristocracy.  They  vied 
among  themselves  in  securing  paintings  by  Van  Dyck, 
and  hardly  any  family  of  importance  failed  to  treasure 

R 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

one  or  more  portraits  of  its  own  members  among  its  family 
heirlooms.  Up  to  the  time  when  the  Republic  lost  its 
independence,  the  Genoese  enjoyed  great  wealth  and  pros- 
perity. The  French  invasion  of  Italy  caused  many  of  the 
great  families  to  close  their  palaces  and  seal  up  their  pos- 
sessions. 

Among  the  leading  families  at  Genoa  is  that  of  Balbi. 
Originally  settlers  from  Venice,  the  family  exists  still  in 
more  than  one  branch.  The  Balbi  were  among  those  who 
shut  up  their  palaces,  but  pressure  of  circumstances  com- 
pelled them  to  contemplate  the  possibility  of  parting  with 
some  of  their  art-treasures,  and  a  breach  was  made  in  the 
ramparts  in  1802  by  the  well-known  dealer,  Mr.  Buch- 
anan. By  degrees  some  of  the  famous  paintings  by  Van 
Dyck  began  to  find  their  way  to  France  and  England. 
At  a  later  date  Baron  J.  B.  Heath,  then  British  Consul  at 
Genoa,  was  able  to  procure  the  splendid  portrait  of  a 
Marchesa  Balbi,  which  was  subsequently  purchased  by 
the  late  Mr.  Robert  Stayner  Holford,  since  when  it  has 
been  at  Dorchester  House,  Park  Lane. 

An  aristocracy  such  as  has  existed  at  Genoa  must 
tend  to  an  inbreeding  which  results  in  a  creation  of  types. 
For  this  reason  the  great  ladies  of  Genoa,  as  depicted  by 
Van  Dyck,  seem  to  conform  to  one  type,  and  to  suggest 
a  want  of  discernment  on  the  part  of  the  painter.  The 
same  may,  however,  be  said  of  Van  Dye  k's  portraits  of 
the  ladies  of  the  English  court,  although  the  atmosphere 
of  the  English  court  was  more  genial  and  airy  than  the 
somewhat  oppressive  languor  of  the  great  Genoese  palaces. 


PORTRAIT  OF  THE  MARCHESA  BALBI 

Gazing  on  the  series  of  the  Genoese  ladies,  whom 
Van  Dyck  has  made  immortal,  Paola  Adorno,  Elena 
Grimaldi,  Geronima  Bignole-Sala,  Caterina  Durazzo, 
Polissena  Spinola,  one  feels  that  the  lives  of  these  rather 
listless  dames  in  their  rich  brocades  and  silks,  their 
wonderful  gold-embroidered  ruffs,  must  have  been  a  weary- 
one,  as  the  life  of  many  a  great  Italian  lady  may  be  at  the 
present  day. 

It  is  pleasant  to  think  what  a  ray  of  light  the  brilliant 
young  Flemish  painter  must  have  brought  into  these 
palaces,  and  to  imagine  how  some  of  those  apparently  dis- 
dainful ladies  may  have  felt  a  fluttering  of  the  heart  while 
posing  before  the  auburn-haired  young  artist.  In  the 
portrait  here  reproduced,  that  of  one  of  the  great  ladies 
of  the  Balbi  family,  the  light  seems  to  have  been  kindled. 
As  the  lady  sits  in  her  great  chair,  almost  overwhelmed 
with  her  heavy  dark-green  velvet  robe,  and  the  glory  of 
her  gold-embroidered  sleeves,  she  smiles  pensively,  with 
an  expression  which  indicates  that  here  at  least  is  to  be 
found  a  human  heart. 

Seldom  can  it  happen  to  a  young  painter  to  have  such 
an  opportunity  as  did  Van  Dyck.  Even  more  seldom, 
perhaps,  would  it  be  possible  to  find  a  painter,  who  had 
but  lately  passed  his  twentieth  year,  who  could  rise  to  the 
occasion.  Posterity  has  been  unanimous  in  its  recog- 
nition of  Van  Dycks  triumph  at  Genoa.  Had  he  painted 
nothing  but  this  series  of  portraits,  he  would  still  have  found 
his  place  among  the  immortals. 


VI 

PORTRAITS  OF  THREE 
CHILDREN  OF  THE  BALBI  FAMILY 

THE  LORD  LUCAS,  NATIONAL  GALLERY 

VAN  DYCK  carried  with  him  to  Genoa  his  love  of 
painting  children,  and  it  is  interesting  to  see  how 
readily  he  adapted  himself  to  his  changed  cir- 
cumstances. The  chubby,  flowery  little  children  of  the 
Flemish  race  give  place  to  a  sense  of  refined,  aristocratic 
little  gentlemen,  stiff  and  haughty  in  their  teens,  the  re- 
sult of  generations  of  aristocratic  inbreeding.  We  now 
feel  that  if  these  children  were  turned  loose  on  the  quays 
at  Antwerp,  they  could  be  as  jolly  and  insouciants  as  a 
young  Fleming ;  but  that  on  the  marble  staircases  and  in 
the  salons  of  the  Genoese  palaces  they  are  pining  for  want 
of  air  and  outlet  of  animal  spirits.  There  is  something 
pathetic  in  the  Group  of  the  Three  Durazzo  Children  in 
the  Durazzo  Palace  at  Genoa,  a  kind  of  foreshadowing 
of  the  'Three  Children  of  Charles  I.5  The  Boy  in  White 
in  the  same  palace  poses  with  as  much  dignity  as  a  Stuart 
or  a  Villiers  might  in  London.  The  most  famous  of  these 
groups  of  children,  perhaps  of  any  such  group,  is  the 
painting  of  the  Three  Children  of  the  Balbi  Family ',  which 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

is  now  on  loan  from  Lord  Lucas  to  the  National  Gallery. 
It  is  the  high- water  mark  of  childish  hauteur^  not  even  a 
Hapsburg  could  be  so  naively  conscious  of  his  own  im- 
portance as  the  eldest  boy,  who  stands  in  a  true  Van  Dyck 
attitude  on  the  steps  of  his  father's  palace.  It  is  not  only 
the  rich  clothes,  the  crimson  hose  and  jerkin,  the  golden 
waistcoat  and  breeches,  the  high  black  velvet  hat  which 
give  this  air,  but  there  is  something  in  the  look  of  the 
boy  himself,  who  feels  evidently  that  the  destiny  of  the 
family  will  be  in  his  hands.  On  the  steps  stand  the  two 
younger  brothers,  the  elder  in  black  velvet  with  gold  fac- 
ings, heavy  fair  hair  brushed  unwillingly  over  an  ample 
forehead,  his  arm  akimbo  on  his  hip,  evidently  destined 
to  be  the  soldier  member  of  the  family.  By  him  stands 
the  youngest  boy,  not  yet  out  of  the  frocks,  in  which  even 
boys  were  clad  in  their  early  years.  He  is  evidently  the 
family  pickle,  and  holds  a  tame  bird,  rather  unkindly 
grasped,  in  his  right  hand.  His  rich  pink  velvet  frock 
is  trimmed  with  gold  braid,  and  the  combination  of  the 
gold  in  the  three  dresses  fills  the  picture  with  scintillat- 
ing light.  As  a  contrast  to  the  rich  brilliance  of  the 
costumes,  Van  Dyck  has  introduced  a  black  curtain  over- 
head, while  two  black  Cornish  choughs  with  red  legs  are 
perched  on  the  steps  in  the  lower  corner  of  the  picture. 
These,  with  the  black  velvet  hat  in  the  eldest  boy's  hand, 
unite  to  harmonise  and  complete  the  scheme  of  colour  in 
a  very  unusual  way.  This  famous  picture  belonged  to  the 
Earls  of  Kent,  and  came,  with  other  paintings  by  Van  Dyck, 
by  inheritance  to  their  last  descendant,  Baroness  Lucas, 


THREE  CHILDREN  OF  THE  BALBI  FAMILY 

who  married  Earl  Cowper.  They  were  then  removed  from 
Wrest  Park  to  Panshanger,  where  the  series  of  full-length 
portraits  ornamented  the  great  dining-room.  On  the 
death  of  the  late  and  last  Earl  Cowper,  the  pictures  became 
the  property  of  his  nephew,  Lord  Lucas,  by  whom  they 
have  been  deposited  on  loan  in  the  National  Gallery. 


\ 


VII 

THE  VIRGIN  AND  CHILD  WITH  ST. 
CATHERINE  OF  ALEXANDRIA 

DUKE  OF  WESTMINSTER,  GROSVENOR  HOUSE,  LONDON 

THIS  painting  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  Van 
Dyck's  renderings  of  the  Holy  Family  and  similar 
compositions.  In  the  early  days  of  the  Flemish 
school  of  painting  the  laws  of  divine  portraiture  were  more 
rigid,  and  the  likeness  of  the  Virgin  Mary  was  governed 
by  a  series  of  recognised  types,  the  divinity  and  holiness 
of  the  subject  being  considered  of  greater  importance  than 
the  humanity.  Under  the  influence  of  the  Italian  school 
these  restrictions  were  gradually  broken  down,  and  the 
rankly  human  model  supplanted  the  conventional  types 
of  mediaeval  days.  Rubens  was  a  powerful  agent  in  this 
change,  and  where  Rubens  went,  Van  Dyck  was  sure  to 
follow.  During  his  student-days,  and  especially  during 
his  sojourn  in  Italy,  Van  Dyck  studied  a  series  of  types  of 
womanhood  from  Italian  life,  which  formed  a  treasure- 
house  on  which  he  drew  after  his  return  to  Antwerp.  Van 
Dyck's  Madonnas  or  female  saints  are  not  Flemish,  but 
Italian  in  type.    They  are  a  blend  of  the  exuberant  vitality 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

of  Rubens  with  the  queenly  grace  of  Titian,  tempered 
sometimes  by  the  sweetness  of  Correggio  or  the  suavity 
of  Raphael. 

This  side  of  Van  Dyck's  art  has  met  with  unmerited 
neglect.  It  was  highly  valued  in  his  day,  and  certain 
paintings  of  this  class  are  known  by  several  contemporary 
replicas  and  innumerable  copies  of  later  dates.  The  paint- 
ing here  reproduced  was  evidently  executed  under  the 
influence  of  Correggio.  It  is  very  probable  that  Van 
Dyck  may  have  visited  Parma  on  his  journey  through 
North  Italy  in  the  train  of  the  Countess  of  Arundel.  The 
picture  appears  to  be  identical  with  one  which  Van  Dyck 
painted  for  the  Church  of  Recollets  at  Antwerp.  It  was 
engraved  several  times ;  by  Bolswert  and  Snyers,  by  Van 
Schuppen,and  by  Abraham  Blooteling,  besides  other  later 
copies  from  these  engravings.  This  indicates  the  popu- 
larity of  the  picture.  The  picture  in  question  came  into 
the  possession  of  Welbore  Agar  Ellis,  afterwards  Lord 
Mendip,  and  eventually  into  that  of  Earl  Grosvenor,  from 
whom  it  has  descended  to  the  present  Duke  of  West- 
minster. 

A  painting  of  the  same  subject  is  in  the  Sprague  Col- 
lection at  New  York,  and  was  exhibited  at  the  International 
Exhibition  of  Brussels  in  the  summer  of  1 9 1  o.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  think  that  this  painting,  attractive  as  it  is,  can  be 
from  the  hand  of  Van  Dyck  himself.  It  should  be  re- 
membered that  in  163 1  Sir  Balthasar  Gerbier  purchased 
for  the  Lord  Treasurer  Weston  une  forte  belle  Notre 
Dame  et  Ste  Catherine  faict  de  la  main  de  Van  Dyck^ 


VIRGIN  AND  CHILD  WITH   ST.  CATHERINE 

which  purported  to  be  one  belonging  to  the  Regent 
Isabella.  Van  Dyck  repudiated  the  authorship  of  Ger- 
bier's  picture,  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  Gerbier's 
version  may  be  the  one  which  has  found  its  way  to  the 
United  States. 


VIII 

CHRIST  ON  THE  CROSS 

IMPERIAL  GALLERY,  VIENNA 

OF  all  the  subjects  outside  portraiture  which  were 
handled  by  Anthony  Van  Dyck,  the  one  for 
which  he  attained  greatest  repute,  lasting  even  to 
this  day,  was  his  rendering  of  the  Crucified  Christ.  In 
dealing  with  this  subject,  as  with  others,  Van  Dyck  can 
lay  no  claim  to  originality  of  idea  or  composition.  The 
'Crucified  Christ'  by  Rubens  in  the  Museum  at  Antwerp 
is  evidently  the  starting-point  for  all  Van  Dyck's  versions 
of  the  same  subject.  The  dying  Saviour,  silhouetted 
against  the  angry  sky,  with  the  house-tops  of  Jerusalem 
just  seen  in  the  sunset  below  the  hill,  is  all  taken  from 
Rubens.  Rubens  was  a  great  artist,  but  in  his  way  a  great 
pagan.  In  his  c  Crucified  Christ,'  Rubens  gives  a  most 
masterly  study  of  the  distended  human  form,  but  his 
religious  feelings  seem  lost  in  his  masterly  study  of  the 
human  body.  The  sense  of  the  Divine  Sacrifice,  the 
Divine  Agony,  is  wanting  in  Rubens,  and  it  is  the  pre- 
valence of  this  sense  in  the  rendering  of  the  Crucified 
Christ  by  Van  Dyck  which  has  brought  fame  to  the 
younger  painter,  and  might,  even  without  his  achieve- 

u 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

ments  as  a  portrait-painter,  have  brought  him  immortality. 
It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  Crucified  Christ  of  Van 
Dyck  with  that,  for  instance,  of  Eugene  Delacroix,  now  in 
the  Thome-Thiery  Collection  in  the  Louvre.  In  spite  of 
the  bleeding  wounds,  the  effulgent  halo,  the  agonised 
expression  of  the  suffering  Saviour,  it  is  evident  that  it 
was  the  theatrical  rather  than  the  religious  aspect  of  the 
great  Tragedy  which  inspired  Delacroix's  facile  and  pas- 
sionate brush.  Only  Albrecht  Dlirer  has  left  perhaps  as 
simple  and  fragrant  a  rendering  of  the  scene  as  Van  Dyck, 
and  with  Diirer  art  and  religion  were  synonymous. 

There  are  numerous  versions  of  the  Crucified  Christ 
by  Van  Dyck,  executed,  as  it  would  appear,  at  different 
periods  of  his  career,  and  in  many  cases,  as  it  may  be  sur- 
mised, the  work  for  the  most  part  of  the  assistants  in  his 
studio.  Those,  however,  executed  in  his  earlier  days  at 
Antwerp  or  at  Genoa,  may  be  safely  attributed  to  his  own 
hand,  and  of  these  one  of  the  best  is  the  example  selected 
here,  which  is  now  in  the  Imperial  Gallery  at  Vienna. 

It  is  recorded  somewhere,  that  at  one  time  during  the 
prolonged  preparations  for  the  famous  Passion  Play  at 
Ober-Ammergau,  the  peasant  selected  for  the  onerous 
part  of  Jesus  Christ  paid  special  attention  to  the  most 
difficult  and  fatiguing  part  of  his  role,  the  suspen- 
sion on  the  Cross  of  a  real  living  human  body.  For 
this  purpose  it  was  necessary  to  study  all  the  pictorial 
renderings  of  the  scene,  and  it  was  found  that  the  painter 
who  displayed  the  most  suitable  knowledge,  physical 
and  emotional,  of  the  human  body  suspended  and  dis- 


CHRIST  ON  THE  CROSS 

tended  in  what  was  intended  originally  to  be  a  position  of 
torture  and  punishment,  was  Anthony  Van  Dyck.  This 
decision  was  in  itself  a  proof  of  the  satisfactory  complete- 
ness with  which  Van  Dyck  conceived  and  realised  the 
great  Tragedy  of  the  Christian  Faith. 


IX 

THE  LAMENTATION  OVER 
CHRIST 

MUSEUM,   ANTWERP 

THE  episode  in  the  sacred  story  of  the  Passion, 
when  the  Body  of  Jesus  Christ  has  been  taken 
down  from  the  Cross,  and  now  lies  prostrate  in 
death  either  on  the  ground  before,  or  actually  on  the 
knees  of  His  weeping  Mother,  has  always  been,  as  might 
be  expected,  one  on  which  the  Church  has  relied  for  the 
most  passionate  emotions,  and  one  which,  in  response 
to  the  Church's  demand,  has  called  forth  the  highest 
powers  of  the  artist  in  every  country,  whether  painter  or 
sculptor.  In  Italy  the  episode  is  usually  known  as  La 
Pieta,  in  the  Netherlands,  especially  in  Flanders,  it  was 
spoken  of  as  the  NoodGods^  the  lowest  point  of  pain  and 
sorrow  to  which  the  Deity  could  stoop,  as  an  atonement 
for  human  sin. 

Such  a  scene,  charged  as  it  is  with  the  highest 
emotion,  both  human  and  divine,  naturally  lends  itself 
to  rhetorical  expression.  Even  the  placid  Early  Italian  is 
moved  to  speak  and  cry  aloud,  as  it  were,  in  interpreting 
this  noble  subject.    Mantegna  is  as  rhetorical  as  Rubens, 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Mazzoni,  in  sculpture,  perhaps  even  more  didactic  than 
Michelangelo.  North  of  the  Alps,  Qucntin  Massys  has 
left  a  type  of  the  Nood  Gods  which,  in  its  simplicity,  is 
the  most  outspoken  of  them  all.  Rubens,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  is  frankly  rhetorical.  He  sees  in  the 
subject  a  magnificent  opportunity  for  the  treatment  of  the 
dead  human  body,  foreshortened,  inanimate,  but  anatomi- 
cally intensely  interesting.  The  inaction  of  the  subject 
gave  Rubens  less  opportunity  for  the  full  expression  of 
his  vast  genius  than  did  the  great  compositions  of  the 
1  Elevation  of  the  Cross '  and  the  c  Descent  from  the 
Cross  '  at  Antwerp,  in  which  pictorial  rhetoric  reached 
its  highest  altitude. 

As  in  his  other  religious  compositions,  Van  Dyck 
strikes  a  different  note  from  Rubens.  He  borrows  his 
composition  from  Rubens,  without  any  thought  of  expres- 
sion other  than  that  of  his  great  master.  Early  renderings 
of  the  subject,  such  as  the  Nood  Gods  in  the  Liechtenstein 
Collection  at  Vienna,  are  mere  repetitions  of  Rubens,  with 
a  certain  youthful  ardour  added  thereto.  As  years  went 
on,  Van  Dyck's  religious  susceptibilities  increased,  and, 
whether  it  was  the  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  or  that  of  his 
sisters,  he  introduces  into  his  sacred  compositions,  and 
especially  into  the  Nood  Gods ,a  tone  of  emotional  rhetoric 
which  is  quite  different  from  the  formal  rhetoric  of 
Rubens.  It  is  impossible  to  look  at  his  most  important 
renderings  of  the  Nood Gods ,that  at  Antwerp,  reproduced 
here,  and  the  larger  version  also  in  the  Antwerp  Museum, 
at  the  great  painting  in  the  Kaiser- Friedrich  Museum  at 


THE  LAMENTATION  OVER  CHRIST 

Berlin,  or  that  in  the  Munich  Gallery,  without  feeling 
that  these  paintings  are  imbued  with  real  religious 
enthusiasm. 

Religious  emotion  is  difficult,  in  fact  impossible,  to 
define  or  interpret.  To  some  the  religious  paintings  by- 
Rubens  will  always  be  admirable,  as  great  paintings, 
while  those  by  Van  Dyck  will  be  dismissed  as  mere 
mechanical  imitations  ;  others,  while  admiring  the  works 
of  Rubens  in  a  palace  or  a  gallery,  will  look  upon  those 
by  Van  Dyck  as  better  suited  than  his  master's  for  the 
service  of  the  Church. 


X    AND    XI 

PRINCE   CHARLES   LOUIS   AND 
PRINCE  RUPERT  OF  BAVARIA 

IMPERIAL  GALLERY,  VIENNA 

AMONG  the  portraits  of  celebrated  personages  who 
/x  were  painted  by  Van  Dyck,  some  of  the  most 
popular  and  best  known  are  those  of  the  two 
young  Palatine  princes,  Charles  Louis  and  Rupert,  the 
sons  of  Frederick  V.,  the  ill-starred  Elector  Palatine  and 
King  of  Bohemia,  and  Elizabeth  Stuart,  sister  to  Charles  I., 
and  the  heroine  of  the  long  disastrous  wars  which  ravaged 
Central  Europe  for  so  many  years. 

Charles  Louis  and  Rupert  were  second  and  third  sons 
of  the  King  and  Queen  of  Bohemia,  but  the  tragic  death 
of  their  eldest  brother  by  drowning  in  1629  brought 
Charles  Louis  into  the  succession  as  heir  of  the  Palatinate. 
Rupert  was  born  in  Prague  during  the  short  reign  of  his 
parents  in  Bohemia,  and  narrowly  escaped  being  left  be- 
hind and  lost  altogether,  when  his  parents  fled  before  the 
Emperor  Ferdinand.  The  two  boys  were  brought  up  in 
exile  at  The  Hague  and  sent  to  the  University  of  Leyden. 
Charles  Louis,  smooth  tongued,  selfish,  and,  as  events 
proved,  an  accomplished  hypocrite,  was  his  mother's 
favourite,  while    Rupert,  rough,    ill-mannered,  quick- 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

tempered,  never  engaged  his  mother's  affection.  It  must 
have  been  but  a  short  time  before  Van  Dyck's  journey  to 
England  that  he  visited  Holland  and  painted  the  two  boy- 
princes  at  The  Hague  or  Leyden.  Rupert  could  not  be 
as  much  as  thirteen,  Charles  Louis  some  two  years  older. 
Their  age  helps  to  date  Van  Dyck's  visit  to  Holland  and 
the  court  of  Prince  Frederick  Henry  of  Orange.  In  the 
whole  gallery  of  Van  Dyck's  portraits  there  are  few  more 
attractive  than  the  companion  portraits  of  the  two  young 
Palatine  brothers.  Rupert  with  his  dog  is  the  forerunner 
of  all  the  series  of  Royalist  portraits ;  and  one  can  already 
read  in  his  face  the  story  of  Marston  Moor.  The  portraits 
were  brought  from  the  Netherlands  in  the  days  of  the 
Emperor  Charles  VI. 

Van  Dyck  was  to  meet  the  two  brothers  again.  In 
1632  the  King  of  Bohemia  died,  and  Charles  Louis  be- 
came titular  Elector  Palatine.  He  and  Rupert  were  now 
allowed  to  commence  their  military  education  with  the 
Prince  of  Orange.  Their  uncle,  King  Charles  I.,  was, 
however,  deeply  interested  in  the  fate  of  his  nephews.  He 
created  Charles  Louis  a  Knight  of  the  Garter  in  1633, 
and  invited  the  two  brothers  to  visit  him  in  England. 
They  arrived  in  1636,  and  their  introduction  at  court 
excited  keen  interest.  Curiously  enough,  the  sedate, 
calculating  Elector  Palatine,  more  concerned  with  the 
recovery  of  his  dominions  than  with  the  graces  and  eti- 
quette of  a  court,  failed  to  please,  while  Rupert,  wild, 
reckless,  and  gallant,  was  a  universal  favourite,  in  spite  of 
his  rough  manners. 


CHARLES  LOUIS  AND  RUPERT  OF  BAVARIA 

Van  Dyck  painted  the  two  brothers  in  a  double  por- 
trait, representing  them  in  armour,  which  is  now  in  the 
Louvre  at  Paris.  This  was  probably  during  his  residence 
in  the  Netherlands  in  1 634.  He  painted  them  again  in  a 
pair  of  full-length  portraits,  of  which  the  superb  originals 
are  in  the  possession  of  the  Earl  of  Craven,  at  Combe 
Abbey,  the  descendant  of  Elizabeth  of  Bohemia's  devoted 
and  loyal  friend.  These  portraits  are  known  by  many 
school  copies,  and  have  always  been  very  popular.  They 
are  sometimes  described  erroneously  as  portraits  of  Prince 
Rupert  and  Prince  Maurice,  but  Van  Dyck  never  saw 
Prince  Maurice,  and  in  any  circumstances  could  never 
have  painted  him.  Before  the  Palatine  princes  entered 
on  the  stage  of  history,  the  painter,  who  has  made  them 
immortal,  was  in  his  grave  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral. 


XII 

PORTRAIT  OF 
MARIA  LUIGIA  DE  TASSIS 

LIECHTENSTEIN   COLLECTION,  VIENNA 

THE  portrait  of  Maria  Luigia  de  Tassis  in  the  col- 
lection of  Prince  Liechtenstein  at  Vienna  is  one 
of  the  best  known  among  the  portraits  of  ladies 
by  Van  Dyck,  owing  to  the  various  fine  engravings  or 
etchings  which  have  been  made  from  the  portrait.  The 
style  of  painting,  the  peculiar  fashion  of  the  rich  costume, 
all  point  to  the  lady,  like  other  great  ladies  of  the  period, 
having  belonged  to  the  Spanish  and  French  court-circles 
congregated  at  Brussels.  The  family  of  Tassis  was  one 
of  the  great  Austro-Spanish  families  settled  in  Brabant. 
The  slashed  sleeves,  tied  in  at  the  elbow  so  as  to  make 
gigot  shape,  the  corsage  open  at  the  neck,  and  the  ruff 
or  collar  falling  away  from  the  head,  are  all  to  be  found  in 
Van  Dyck's  portraits  of  the  Duchess  of  Lorraine,  Genevieve 
d'Urfe,  Duchesse  de  Croy,  Amalia  van  Solms,  wife  of  the 
Prince  of  Orange,  and  other  great  ladies  of  the  time,  such 
as  the  portrait  of  the  Youssupoff  Collection.  The  fashion 
quickly  came  into  vogue,  and  was  adopted  by  ladies 
of  wealth,  like  Charlotte  Butkens,  whose  portrait  is  at 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Gotha,  and  Helena  Fourment,  the  second  wife  of  Rubens, 
whose  full-length  portrait  in  black  with  a  fan,  sometimes 
attributed  to  Rubens  himself,  is  in  the  Hermitage  at 
Petersburg.  In  the  two  last  portraits  we  get  also  the 
graceful  motive  of  the  white  ostrich-feather  fan.  The 
sidelong,  rather  alluring  look  of  Maria  Luigia  de  Tassis 
brings  her  portrait  into  contact  with  the  famous  portrait 
of  Beatrice  de  Cusance,  Princesse  de  Cante-Croix  and 
afterwards  Duchess  of  Lorraine,  so  well  known  to  visitors 
at  Windsor  Castle.  As  this  latter  portrait  must  have  been 
painted  by  Van  Dyck  during  his  visit  to  Brussels  in  1634, 
it  may  be  assumed  that  Maria  Luigia  de  Tassis  had  her 
portrait  taken  on  the  same  occasion.  An  admirable  por- 
trait of  one  Don  Antonio  de  Tassis,  an  aristocratic  priest, 
evidently  belonging  to  the  Society  of  Jesus,  is  also  in  the 
Liechtenstein  Collection.  We  may  assume  that  he  was  the 
brother  of  Maria  Luigia.  They  were  probably  related  to 
the  ill-fated  Don  Juan  de  Tassis,  Count  of  Villa  Mediana, 
whose  supposed  intrigue  with  Queen  Isabel  of  Spain  led 
to  his  assassination  at  Madrid  in  the  open  street  in  August 
1622. 

Very  little,  however,  is  known  about  Maria  Luigia  de 
Tassis,  save  that  she  has  been  immortalised  by  Van  Dyck. 
Her  family  seems  to  have  been  connected  with,  and  per- 
haps of  the  same  stock  as  the  Princes  of  Thurn  and  Taxis, 
the  hereditary  post-masters  of  the  empire. 


XIII 

PORTRAIT  OF 

FRANCISCO  DE  MONCADA,  THIRD 

MARQUES  D'AYTONA 

THE  LOUVRE,  PARIS 

CONSPICUOUS  among  the  series  of  great  portraits 
painted  by  Anthony  Van  Dyck  are  the  portraits 
which  he  painted  of  the  successive  commanders- 
in-chief,  or  generalissitni,  of  the  Spanish  forces  in  the 
Netherlands,  in  addition  to  other  military  commanders 
of  great  distinction  in  the  troubled  history  of  the  period. 
Beginning  with  Ambrogio  Spinola,  with  whose  family 
Van  Dyck  had  so  many  relations  at  Genoa,  he  painted 
Hendrik,  Count  of  Julich  and  Berg  ;  Thomas,  Prince  of 
Savoie-Carignan ;  and  Francisco  de  Moncada,  Marques 
d'Aytona.  Moncada  was  a  trusted  statesman  and  skilled 
diplomatist,  besides  being  a  military  commander,  and  was 
sent  to  the  Netherlands  in  1633  to  command  the  forces. 
Shortly  after  his  arrival  the  Regent  Isabella  Clara  Eugenia 
died,  and  in  the  interval  between  the  appointment  of 
another  regent  Moncada  was  practically  acting-regent  of 

2  A 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

the  Netherlands,  until  the  arrival  of  the  Infant  Ferdinand. 
In  this  capacity  he  was  instrumental  in  bringing  the  re- 
bellious States  once  more  under  the  Spanish  yoke.  During 
Van  Dyck's  visit  to  Brussels  in  1634  Francisco  de  Mon- 
cada, Marques  d'Aytona,  was  the  principal  personage 
at  the  court.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  Van 
Dyck  should  have  painted  more  than  one  portrait  of 
Moncada,  and  done  his  best  to  please  so  powerful  a 
patron. 

There  are  three  distinct  portraits  of  Moncada  by  Van 
Dyck.  The  best  known  is  that  in  armour,  as  military 
commander.  A  bust  portrait  showing  the  general  in 
armour  with  a  plain  broad  linen  collar  is  in  the  Louvre, 
and  formerly  belonged  to  the  private  collection  of  King 
Louis  XIV.,  who  valued  it  highly.  It  is  evidently  the 
study  for  the  full-length  portrait  of  Moncada  on  horse- 
back, also  in  the  Louvre.  In  this  portrait,  over  which  Van 
Dyck  seems  to  have  taken  much  trouble,  the  painter  has 
sought  to  flatter  Moncada  by  painting  him  in  the  attitude 
of  the  painter's  royal  master,  King  Charles  I.,  and  using 
his  own  studies  of  the  horse  and  figure. 

Moncada  was  painted  by  Van  Dyck  in  civilian  dress 
in  the  three-quarter-length  portrait  in  the  Imperial  Gallery 
at  Vienna,  a  portrait  perhaps  more  striking  in  mere  de- 
lineation of  character  than  the  equestrian  portrait  at  Paris. 
A  third  and  little-known  portrait  of  Moncada  by  Van 
Dyck,  showing  him  at  whole  length  in  a  black  dress  and 
cloak,  is  in  the  gallery  at  Cassel,  and  was  acquired  for  the 
Electoral  Gallery  in  1745.     A  bust  portrait,  which  can 


PORTRAIT  OF  FRANCISCO  DE  MONCADA 

hardly  claim  to  be  an  original,  is  at  North  wick  House  in 
Worcestershire. 

All  these  portraits  must  have  been  executed  by  Van 
Dyck  at  Brussels  in  1634,  since  the  Marques  d'Aytona 
did  not  come  to  the  Netherlands  until  163 1,  and  died  in 
1635,  soon  after  the  painter's  return  to  England. 


1 1 


XIV 

RINALDO  AND  ARMIDA 

DUKE   OF  NEWCASTLE,  CLUMBER 

THE  famous  epic  poem  Orlando  Furioso,  by  Ariosto, 
provided  material  for  the  history-painter  for 
some  generations.  So  few  persons  have  read 
the  poem  nowadays  that  it  is  difficult  to  comprehend 
the  hold  which  it  had  upon  our  forefathers,  even  down  to 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  poem  is,  however, 
full  of  picturesque  situations,  charged  with  sensuous 
beauty,  and  remains  a  splendid  monument  of  the  pseudo- 
classic  art  of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  It  is  a  tribute  to 
Ariosto  himself,  that  whereas  so  many  epic  poems  of  his 
day  have  been  forgotten  altogether  or  relegated  to  the 
class  of  extinct  monsters,  Ariosto's  story  of  Orlando,  of 
Rinaldo  and  Armida  still  excites  some  lingering  reminis- 
cences in  our  minds.  On  one  occasion  it  may  be  the 
magic  music  of  Gluck,  on  another  a  tapestry  by  Coy  pel, 
or  again  a  painting  by  Van  Dyck,  but  the  ensnaring  of 
the  hero,  Rinaldo  or  Renaud,  in  the  magic  garden  of 
Armida  has  been  the  prototype  of  many  similar  incidents, 
such  as  the  temptation  of  Parsifal  by  the  Flower-maidens 

2  B 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

and  by  Kundry.  In  the  days  of  Van  Dyck  the  tale  of 
Rinaldo  and  Armida  was  a  stock  subject  for  painter,  poet, 
or  musician,  and  had  been  brought  into  vogue  in  England 
through  the  translation  into  English  by  Sir  John  Har- 
rington. The  subject  seems  to  have  been  a  favourite  with 
Van  Dyck,  though  it  was  not  well  known  in  Flanders, 
and  may  have  been  suggested  to  Van  Dyck  from  England. 
Rubens  does  not  appear  to  have  handled  it.  A  commis- 
sion, however,  seems  to  have  reached  Van  Dyck  for  a 
painting  of  this  subject  through  Endymion  Porter,  groom 
of  the  Bedchamber  to  King  Charles  I.  On  23  rd  March 
1629-30,  an  order  on  the  Exchequer  was  issued  to  pay 
to  Endymion  Porter,  one  of  the  grooms  of  his  Majesty's 
Bedchamber,  the  sum  of  ^78  'for  ane  picture  of  the  Storie 
of  Reynaldo  and  Armida  bought  by  him  of  Monsieur 
Vandick  of  Antwerpe  as  delivered  to  his  Matie  in  that 
accompt.  .  .  .'  This  picture  is  evidently  the  c  Storie  out  of 
Ariosto  by  Van  Dyck'  which,  at  the  dispersal  of  the  king's 
pictures  in  1649,  was  so^  to  Col.  Webb  for  ^80.  Two 
important  renderings  of  this  subject  by  Van  Dyck  exist,  and 
others  are  to  be  found  in  Continental  collections.  There 
is  a  well-known  painting  in  the  Louvre  of  c  Rinaldo  and 
Armida,'  which  was  engraved  in  1644.  This  is  quite  a 
distinct  composition  from  the  painting  in  the  collection  of 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle.  This  is  also  authenticated  by  a 
contemporary  engraving,  and  appears  to  be  the  picture 
which  originally  belonged  to  Charles  I.  Several  copies  of 
it  are  known  to  exist.  In  the  Newcastle  version  the 
influence  of  Titian  is  very  strong  in  colour,  grouping, 


RINALDO  AND  ARMIDA 

and  especially  the  nude  nymph  who  is  rising  from  the 
water.  The  infant  putti  are  characteristic  of  Van  Dyck 
himself,  and  the  sleeping  Rinaldo  would  seem  to  be  a 
portrait  of  Van  Dyck's  friend  at  Antwerp,  the  musician 
Liberti.  It  belongs  to  the  same  period  as  the  picture  of 
Venus  at  the  Forge  of  Vulcan ,  now  in  the  Imperial 
Gallery  at  Vienna,  which  is  evenmore  reminiscent  of  Titian 
and  the  Italian  Renaissance.  Composed  as  it  is  of  special 
formulas,  a  splendid  machine  as  it  might  be  called,  the 
picture  all  the  same  is  of  very  fine  quality,  and  raises  Van 
Dyck  to  a  high  rank  among  the  painters  of  history  and 
mythology. 


XV 

PHILIP,   LORD   WHARTON 

THE  HERMITAGE,  PETERSBURG 

THE  portrait  of  Philip,  Lord  Wharton,  is  one  of  the 
chief  treasures  of  the  Russian  Imperial  Collection 
in  the  Hermitage  Gallery  at  Petersburg.  It 
was  lent  by  the  Emperor  of  Russia  to  the  Van  Dyck 
Exhibition  at  Antwerp  in  1899,  anQl  again  to  the  Winter 
Exhibition  of  the  Royal  Academy  during  the  following 
winter.  Its  peculiar  charm  exercised  a  fascinating  in- 
fluence on  the  public,  and  was  recognised  by  painters  and 
critics  alike. 

The  portrait  marks  an  important  epoch  in  the  painter's 
life.  It  was  painted  in  1632,  when  the  subject  was  but 
nineteen  years  old,  and  soon  after  Van  Dyck's  arrival  in 
England.  The  young  Lord  Wharton,  a  peer  since  his 
childhood,  was  one  of  the  handsomest  youths  and  the  best 
dancers  at  the  court  of  King  Charles  I.  At  this  early  age, 
and  in  this  very  year,  he  was  married,  and  it  was  without 
doubt  this  happy  event  which  led  to  this  famous  portrait 
by  Van  Dyck.  In  this  painting  Van  Dyck  appears  in  a 
newlight.  Although  during  the  past  few  years  at  Antwerp 
he  had  shown  himself  a  powerful  colourist,  even  when  re- 
stricting himself  to  the  intensity  of  black  and  white,  the 
2  c 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

painter  now  reveals  himself  as  an  expert  in  gay  and 
brilliantly  lighted  surface  treatment,  evidently  more  con- 
genial to  the  lively  court  circle,  of  which  he  now  formed 
a  member,  and  at  which  such  masquerading  as  shepherds 
and  shepherdesses  was  a  fashionable  conceit. 

The  scheme  of  colour  in  this  portrait,  yellow,  purple, 
and  green,  is  peculiar  to  Van  Dyck,  although  it  is  pro- 
bably based  on  notes  taken  during  his  residence  in  Italy 
from  Paolo  Veronese.  His  blending  of  the  colours  is 
admirably  effected,  the  colours  are  simply  but  surely  laid 
on,  and  the  effect  produced  by  glazings  in  the  Italian 
manner.  In  the  hands  of  a  less  skilful  executant  such  a 
blend  of  colour  might  have  appeared  cheap  and  crude. 
Under  the  hand  of  Van  Dyck  they  not  only  unite  with 
each  other  to  make  the  glamour  of  the  painting,  but  serve 
to  enhance  the  beauty  of  the  youthful  nobleman's  head, 
which  remains,  as  always  with  Van  Dyck,  the  important 
point  of  observation  in  the  portrait.  It  is  inevitable  that 
a  certain  amount  of  the  beauty  of  the  rich  fruity  colour, 
of  the  values  and  the  scheme  of  lighting,  should  be  lost  in 
any  form  of  reproduction. 

This  portrait  must  be  carefully  distinguished  from  the 
later  portrait  of  the  same  Lord  Wharton,  painted  by  Van 
Dyck  some  five  years  later  for  Lord  Wharton's  house  at 
Winchendon  in  Buckinghamshire.  This  series  of  portraits 
by  Van  Dyck  passed  into  the  hands  of  Sir  Robert  Wal- 
pole,  who  purchased  them  at  the  break-up  of  the  spend- 
thrift Duke  of  Wharton's  estate,  and  they  were  again 
dispersed  by  Wal pole's  own  spendthrift  grandson,  the 


PHILIP,  LORD  WHARTON 

third  Earl  of  Orford.  Some  found  their  way  to  Peters- 
burg, being  purchased  for  the  Empress  Catherine,  and  the 
earlier  portrait  of  Philip,  Lord  Wharton,  shared  this  fate. 
The  whole-length  portrait  of  Lord  Wharton,  painted  in 
1637,  was  purchased  by  the  Earl  of  Hardwicke,  from 
whom  it  descended  to  its  present  owner,  Lord  Lucas,  who 
has  deposited  it  on  loan  in  the  National  Gallery.  Another 
version  of  this  later  picture,  with  other  portraits  of  the 
Wharton  family,  is  in  the  possession  of  Philip,  Lord 
Wharton's  descendant,  Mr.  Kemeys-Tynte  of  Halsewell, 
near  Bridgewater.  In  his  later  years  Lord  Wharton  be- 
came a  strong  adherent  of  the  parliamentary  cause,  a 
transition  well  illustrated  by  the  difference  between  the 
careless  shepherd  in  golden  brown  of  1632  and  the  sedate, 
already  careworn  courtier  of  1637. 


XVI 

QUEEN  HENRIETTA  MARIA 

LADY  WANTAGE,  LOCKINGE 

HENRIETTA  MARIA,  queen-consort  of  King 
Charles  I.,  may  be  said  to  owe  her  place  in  his- 
tory to  her  portraits  by  Van  Dyck.  The  daughter 
of  Henry  IV.  and  Marie  de'  Medicis  could  hardly  fail  in 
many  of  the  graces  and  dignities  which  befit  a  queen. 
Contemporary  writers  are  not  enthusiastic  about  her 
beauty,  though  they  all  credit  her  with  charm  and  a  pleas- 
ing appearance.  Posterity  judges  her  from  the  portraits 
by  Van  Dyck,  who  depicted  her  in  many  varying  atti- 
tudes and  dresses,  until  the  refined  fice,  with  its  fine  eyes 
and  dark-brown  ringleted  hair,  has  become  one  of  the  most 
familiar  types  in  history. 

It  was  naturally  one  of  the  first  duties  of  Anthony 
Van  Dyck  on  his  arrival  in  England  in  1632  to  paint 
portraits  of  the  king  and  queen.  Apart  from  the  great 
family  group  at  Windsor  Castle,  the  earliest  portrait  of 
the  queen,  painted  by  Van  Dyck,  was  that  of  which  one 
version  is  here  reproduced.  The  queen  stands  by  a  table, 
clothed  in  white  and  silver  with  pink  bows  and  ribbons. 
Her  right  hand  rests  on  a  table  on  which  are  the  royal 

2  D 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

cloak  and  some  roses.  She  is  in  the  heyday  of  her  happy 
life,  most  of  the  cares  and  troubles  of  her  early  married 
life  having  been  removed,  while  the  shadow  of  the  tragedy 
to  come  had  not  yet  fallen  across  her  path.  So  she  ap- 
pears in  this  portrait,  the  original  of  which  is  no  doubt 
that  at  Windsor  Castle,  which  is  noted  as  having  been  a 
special  favourite  with  King  Charles  I. 

This  portrait  was  evidently  much  appreciated  at  the 
time,  as  would  appear  from  the  number  of  replicas  and 
copies  which  exist.  The  queen  no  doubt  gave  Van  Dyck 
more  than  one  commission  to  repeat  the  portrait  for  royal 
purposes.  One  of  the  best  of  these  repetitions  was  evi- 
dently sent  to  Brussels,  probably  as  a  present  to  the  regent, 
Isabella  Clara  Eugenia,  after  whose  death  it  remained  in 
the  royal  palace  at  Tervueren,  near  Brussels.  During  the 
wars  which  raged  round  Brussels  for  so  many  years  the 
picture  changed  hands  more  than  once,  being  appropri- 
ated at  one  time  by  the  Elector  of  Bavaria,  and  at  another 
by  the  Emperor  Charles  VI.  Finally,  when  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough  entered  Brussels  as  a  conqueror  in  1708, 
Van  Dyck's  portrait  of  Henrietta  Maria,  together  with  the 
great  equestrian  portrait  of  Charles  I.,  was  selected  by 
the  duke  as  a  gift  from  the  town  of  Brussels,  and  removed 
to  England  to  adorn  the  picture  gallery  of  the  duke's  new 
palace  at  Blenheim.  There  the  picture  remained  until 
1885,  when  it  was  sold,  and  purchased  by  Lord  Wantage. 

Another  version  of  this  portrait  of  equal  excellence 
was  formerly  in  the  collection  of  the  Marquess  of  Lans- 
downe,  K.G.,  and  is  now  in  that  of  Mr.  Edmund  Davis. 


QUEEN  HENRIETTA  MARIA 

Others  of  varying  merit  are  to  be  found  in  other  private 
collections. 

The  same  portrait,  with  slight  modifications,  was  used 
by  Van  Dyck  for  the  double  portrait  of  Henrietta  Maria 
giving  a  laurel  wreath  to  Charles  I.,  which  is  now  in  the 
collection  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  K.G.,  at  Euston. 


XVII 

JAMES  STANLEY,  SEVENTH  EARL 

OF  DERBY 

WITH   HIS  WIFE,  CHARLOTTE,  AND  THEIR 
DAUGHTER,  KATHERINE 

Messrs.  KNOEDLER  &  CO.,  LONDON  AND  NEW  YORK 

JAMES  STANLEY,  Lord  Strange,  eldest  son  of 
William,  sixth  Earl  of  Derby,  and  Elizabeth, 
daughter  of  Edward  de  Vere,  seventeenth  Earl  of 
Oxford,  was  born  at  Knowsley  on  January  31,  1606/7. 
As  the  heir  of  one  of  the  most  powerful  magnates  in  the 
north  of  England,  and  the  Sovereign  Lord  of  the  Isle  of 
Man,  he  was  considered  worthy  ot  an  important  matri- 
monial alliance,  in  which  politics  and  religion  took  a  part. 
Among  the  princesses  and  ducal  relatives  of  the  House  of 
Orange  at  The  Hague  in  Holland  was  Charlotte,  eldest 
daughter  of  Claude  de  La  Tremouille,  Due  de  Thouars, 
by  his  wife  Charlotte,  third  daughter  of  William  the  Silent, 
Prince  of  Orange,  by  his  third  wife,  Charlotte  de  Bourbon. 
The  marriage  with  Lord  Strange  appears  to  have  been  ar- 
ranged by  the  Queen  of  Bohemia,  and  took  place  at  The 
Hague  on  June  26,  1626,  the  bride  being  seven  years 
older  than  her  husband. 

2  E 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Lord  Strange  was  a  man  of  retiring  habits  and  literary 
tastes.  He  preferred  country  pursuits  to  court-life,  and 
though  devoted  to  the  king's  service,  he  was  opposed  to 
any  unconstitutional  action  on  the  king's  part,  while  in 
matters  of  religion  he  was  a  moderate  partisan,  and  not  in 
sympathy  with  the  advanced  Church  policy  of  Archbishop 
Laud.  He  took  so  little  part  in  public  affairs  that  his 
loyalty  was  doubted,  but  at  the  first  outbreak  of  war  in 
1639  he  joined  the  king  at  York,  and  when  the  Civil 
War  really  broke  out  he  proved  himself  one  of  the  most 
ardent  supporters  of  the  royalist  cause  in  Lancashire, 
although  his  principal  efforts  were  unsuccessful  and  his 
military  capacity  not  very  great.  On  September  29, 1642, 
Lord  Strange  succeeded  his  father  as  seventh  Earl  of 
Derby.  As  the  royalist  cause  continued  to  be  unsuccess- 
ful in  Lancashire,  the  Earl  of  Derby's  residence,  Lathom 
House,  became  the  last  stronghold  of  the  cause.  In 
February  1643/4  the  house  was  invested  by  Sir  William 
Fairfax's  army,  but  the  Countess  of  Derby,  who  was  then 
in  residence  with  her  children,  declined  to  surrender,  and 
declared  that  she  and  her  children  would  rather  perish  in  the 
flames  of  the  castle  than  yield.  The  siege  lasted  until  May, 
when  Lathom  House  was  relieved  by  the  king's  army  under 
Prince  Rupert.  The  Earl  of  Derby  took  part  in  the  relief 
of  his  home  and  family,  but  after  the  destructive  defeat 
at  Marston  Moor,  he  removed  with  his  family  to  the  Isle 
of  Man,  where  he  continued  to  maintain  the  royalist  cause 
and  refused  to  make  terms  with  the  Parliament.  In  1 65 1 , 
though  far  from  sanguine  of  success,  he  crossed  to  Lanca- 
shire and  joined  Charles  II. 's  army.  He  was  badly  defeated 


EARL  AND  COUNTESS  OF  DERBY  AND  CHILD 

at  Wigan,  but  escaped  to  join  Charles  at  Worcester,  after 
which  he  conducted  the  king  to  Boscobel.  Returning 
north  he  was  captured  by  the  parliamentary  army,  and 
arraigned  for  high  treason.  In  spite  of  Cromwell's  support, 
he  was  condemned  as  a  traitor,  and  executed  at  Bolton  on 
October  15,  165 1.  After  his  death  the  Isle  of  Man  was 
surrendered  to  the  Parliament,  and  the  Countess  of  Derby 
removed  to  Knowsley,  where  she  died  on  March  2 1 , 
1663/4. 

The  Earl  and  Countess  of  Derby  had  nine  children, 
of  whom  the  second  daughter,  Lady  Katherine  Stanley, 
afterwards  Marchioness  of  Dorchester,  appears  to  be  the 
child  painted  with  her  parents  by  Van  Dyck. 

Although  the  earl  and  countess  did  not  mix  much  in 
court  circles  in  London,  the  connection  of  Van  Dyck 
with  Prince  Frederick  Henry  of  Orange  and  his  wife, 
Amalia  van  Solms,  would  have  recommended  him  to 
their  niece,  the  Countess  of  Derby.  The  portrait  group, 
which  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  Earl  of  Clarendon, 
who  had  shared  the  exile  of  the  English  court  at  The 
Hague,  remained  until  lately  in  the  possession  of  his  de- 
scendant at  The  Grove  near  Watford.  It  is  one  of  Van 
Dyck's  most  important  English  paintings  outside  those 
painted  for  the  king.  The  composition  is  somewhat 
awkward  and  ill-balanced,  but  the  character  of  the  earl 
and  countess  well  defined.  The  figure  of  the  child  is  a 
particularly  fine  piece  of  painting.  A  study  for  the 
figure  of  the  countess  is  in  the  Print  Room  at  the  British 
Museum. 


XVIII 

WILLIAM  CAVENDISH,  DUKE  OF 
NEWCASTLE 

DUKE  OF  PORTLAND,  WELBECK  ABBEY 

NO  figure  was  more  conspicuous  in  his  time  than 
William  Cavendish,  Duke  of  Newcastle.  Born 
in  1592,  he  was  the  son  of  Sir  Charles  Caven- 
dish,and  grandson  of  Sir  William  Cavendish  and  Elizabeth 
Hardwick.  Arabella  Stuart  was  his  first  cousin.  His 
mother  was  Catherine,  Baroness  Ogle  in  her  own  right. 
From  boyhood  William  Cavendish  was  associated  with 
the  court,  and  in  161 9  he  entertained  King  James  I.  at 
Welbeck  Abbey,  an  expensive  business  which  was  re- 
peated on  more  than  one  occasion.  The  king  created 
him  Viscount  Mansfield,  and  after  the  accession  of  King 
Charles  I.  he  was  created  Earl  of  Newcastle.  In  1 63  8  he 
was  appointed  by  the  king  to  be  governor  to  the  Prince 
of  Wales,  to  whom  he  taught  horsemanship.  In  1639  he 
raised  a  troop  of  horse,  entirely  of  gentlemen,  to  support 
the  king  in  his  Scottish  campaign.  Subsequently  New- 
castle took  the  leading  part  in  the  military  operations  in 
the  north  of  England  in  the  king's  cause,  which  he  main- 
tained with  varying  success,  until  the  fatal  battle  of  Marston 
2  F 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

Moor  in  July  1 644,  in  which  he  fought  bravely  as  a  volun- 
teer, in  spite  of  Prince  Rupert's  refusal  to  follow  New- 
castle's advice.  After  this  disaster  Newcastle,  who  had 
been  made  a  marquess  a  year  earlier,  despaired  of  the  royal 
cause,  and  took  refuge  in  Paris.  Subsequently  he  removed 
to  Antwerp,  where  he  settled  until  the  Restoration,  de- 
voting himself  to  his  famous  riding-school,  and  the  pre- 
paration of  his  great  work  on  Horsemanships  with  which 
his  name  will  always  be  connected. 

After  the  Restoration  Newcastle  followed  King  Charles 
II.  to  England,  and  was  treated  with  great  honour.  His 
estates  and  revenues  were  restored.  He  was  created  Duke 
of  Newcastle,  and  made  K.G.  He  took,  however,  no 
further  part  in  public  life,  but  remained  at  Welbeck  Abbey, 
employing  his  time  in  horsemanship,  racing,  and  litera- 
ture. Some  of  his  plays  had  some  success  on  the  stage, 
and  he  was  assisted  by  Dryden,  who  owed  something  to 
the  duke's  patronage.  Newcastle  died  in  1676,  and  was 
buried  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

The  full-length  portrait  of  the  Duke  of  Newcastle 
at  Welbeck  Abbey  has  descended  to  its  present  owner, 
the  Duke  of  Portland,  K.G.,  by  direct  inheritance  from 
the  Duke  of  Newcastle's  granddaughter,  Margaret,  who 
married  John  Holies,  Earl  of  Clare,  afterwards  Duke  of 
Newcastle,  and  was  mother  of  Henrietta  Cavendish  Holies, 
who  married  Edward  Harley,  second  Earl  of  Oxford,  and 
was  in  her  turn  mother  to  Lady  Margaret  Harley,  wife  of 
the  second  Duke  of  Portland. 

The  duke  stands  at  full  length,  in  black  dress,  in  a 


WILLIAM  CAVENDISH,  DUKE  OF  NEWCASTLE 

pose  very  characteristic  of  Van  Dyck.  At  a  later  date  the 
ribbon  and  the  cloak  with  the  star  of  the  Garter  have  been 
added,  which  injure  the  effect  of  the  picture.  A  copy  of 
the  portrait  in  its  original  state  with  the  red  ribbon  of  the 
Bath  is  preserved  at  Welbeck  Abbey.  A  replica  of  the 
original  portrait  in  Althorp  House,  belonging  to  Earl 
Spencer,  to  whom  it  also  descended  by  inheritance  by  the 
marriage  of  Charles  Spencer,  Earl  of  Sunderland  with  Ara- 
bella, third  daughter  of  Henry  Cavendish,  second  Duke 
of  Newcastle.  There  is  a  slight  difference  in  the  heads 
in  these  two  portraits,  but  the  head  in  the  Welbeck  version 
seems  to  have  more  character  and  distinction  than  that  at 
Althorp. 


XIX 

PORTRAIT  OF 
ARTHUR  GOODWIN,  M.P. 

DUKE  OF  DEVONSHIRE,  CHATSWORTH 

ARTHUR  GOODWIN,  born  about  1593-4,  was  son 
/V  of  Sir  Francis  Goodwin  of  Upper  Winchendon 
in  Buckinghamshire.  He  was  an  early  friend  of 
John  Hampden  at  Oxford  University  and  at  the  Inner 
Temple,  and  sat  in  Parliament  as  Hampden's  colleague  in 
the  representation  of  Buckinghamshire.  During  the  Civil 
War,  Goodwin  held  a  command,  like  Hampden,  in  the 
parliamentary  army  under  the  Earl  of  Essex,  and  when 
Hampden  received  his  mortal  wound,  Goodwin  took  him 
to  Thame  and  remained  with  him  to  the  end.  He  did 
not  survive  his  friend  very  long,  as  he  died  in  the  same 
year,  1643,  and  was  buried  at  Woburn  in  Buckingham- 
shire. 

Arthur  Goodwin  married  Jane,  third  daughter  of  Sir 
Richard  Wenman,  of  Thame  Park,  Oxfordshire,  by  whom 
he  had  an  only  daughter,  Jane,  who  in  1637  became  the 
second  wife  of  Philip,  fourth  Lord  Wharton.  It  was 
through  this  marriage  that  Arthur  Goodwin  came  to  be 
painted  by  Van  Dyck.      Philip,  Lord  Wharton,  as  has 

2  G 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

been  stated  elsewhere,  had  a  series  of  portraits  of  his 
family  painted  by  Van  Dyck  for  his  house  at  Winchen- 
don,  which  he  had  inherited  through  this  marriage.  The 
portraits  were  mostly  at  full-length,  and  among  these  was 
the  portrait  of  Arthur  Goodwin,  here  reproduced.  When 
the  Duke  of  Wharton's  estate  was  sold,  the  portrait  of 
Arthur  Goodwin  was  among  those  purchased  by  Sir 
Robert  Walpole,  who  subsequently  presented  this  portrait 
to  his  friend  the  Duke  of  Devonshire,  since  which  date 
the  picture  has  remained  at  Chats  worth. 

The  portrait  of  Arthur  Goodwin  is  one  of  Van 
Dyck's  happiest  efforts  in  portraiture,  not  only  for  the 
likeness,  and  the  simplicity  and  dignity  of  its  pose,  but 
also  for  its  peculiar  scheme  of  colour.  In  this  scheme 
of  yellow,  orange  and  brown,  Van  Dyck  was  carrying 
out  a  scheme  similar  to  that  employed  in  the  portrait  of 
Philip,  Lord  Wharton,  at  the  time  of  his  first  marriage  in 
1632.     Van  Dyck  was  very  partial  to  the  use  of  yellow. 


XX 

SIR    WILLIAM   KILLIGREW 

DUKE   OF   NEWCASTLE,  CLUMBER 

THE  court  of  Queen  Elizabeth  was  a  happy  hunt- 
ing-ground for  the  young  adventurer,  and  if  he 
were  possessed  of  a  handsome  face,  a  shapely  leg, 
and  a  ready  wit,  there  were  plenty  of  opportunities  for 
attracting  royal  notice  and  finding  one's  way  into  royal 
favour.  This  was  especially  the  case  with  courtiers  from 
the  south-western  counties  of  England,  Somerset,  Devon, 
and  Cornwall,  and  these  counties  may  well  be  proud  of 
the  names  of  Raleigh,  Carew,  Gorges,  and  others.  Among 
the  young  men  who  found  their  way  from  Cornwall  to 
London  was  a  certain  William  Killigrew,  an  impecunious 
gentleman  from  Arwennack.  Undeterred  by  lack  of 
money  he  got  a  post  at  court  as  groom  of  the  Privy  Cham- 
ber, obtained  valuable  privileges  from  the  queen,  and  sat 
in  Parliament  for  various  constituencies  in  Cornwall.  He 
continued  to  enjoy  the  favour  of  King  James  I.,  who 
knighted  him,  and  was  the  founder  of  a  family  who  were 
perhaps  among  the  best  known  figures  at  the  courts  of 
James  I.  and   Charles  I.,  for  their  wit,  their  power  of 

2    H 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

getting  on,  and  their  eye  to  the  main  chance.  William 
Killigrew's  brother,  Sir  Henry,  was  both  diplomatist  and 
painter. 

Sir  Robert  Killigrew,  who  shared  his  father's  favour 
with  King  James  I.,  who  knighted  him  in  the  same  year, 
also  represented  Cornwall  in  Parliament.  He  is  chiefly 
known  by  his  connection  with  the  mystery  of  Sir  Thomas 
Overbdry's  death  in  the  Tower,  as  Killigrew,  who  had 
the  family  knack,  or  foible,  of  being  able  to  turn  his  hand 
to  anything,  was  a  dabbler  in  medicine,  and  prepared  the 
powders  which  were  said  to  have  hastened  Overbury's 
death.  Be  it  as  it  may,  Killigrew  managed  to  stick  to 
his  place  at  court,  chiefly  through  the  interest  of  Bucking- 
ham, and  died  Vice-Chamberlain  to  the  queen.  The 
family  were  born  into  court  circles,  and  retained  position 
at  court  with  an  almost  barnacle-like  tenacity.  With 
them  Van  Dyck  must  have  associated  with  great  pleasure. 
Men  and  women  alike,  the  Killigrew  family  were  witty, 
reckless,  and  the  best  of  company.  Thomas  Killigrew,  the 
younger  brother,  was  one  of  the  king's  boon  companions, 
his  licensed  wit  and  jester,  who  after  the  Restoration  was 
to  earn  something  like  immortality  as  the  reviver  of  the 
English  stage  and  the  founder  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre. 
Anne  Killigrew,  his  sister,  Lady  of  the  Bedchamber  to  the 
queen,  married  George  Kirke,  and  her  portrait  by  Van 
Dyck  is  reproduced  in  this  volume.  Elizabeth  Killigrew 
became  Viscountess  Shannon  and  established  her  position 
at  court  as  one  of  Charles  II. 's  reigning  sultanas.  Henry 
Killigrew,  who  possessed  the  family  talent  for  dramatic  art, 


SIR  WILLIAM  KILLIGREW 

became  chaplain  to  the  king  and  attended  him  during 
the  Civil  Wars.  He  died  Master  of  the  Savoy,  leaving  a 
daughter,  Anne,  who  obtained  some  distinction  as  a 
painter. 

The  eldest  brother  of  this  family,  Sir  William  Killigrew, 
whose  portrait  is  reproduced  here,  showed  all  the  family 
gifts,  as  poet,  dramatist,  politician,  and  court  official,  both 
under  Charles  I.  and  Charles  II.  In  the  latter  reign  he 
produced  some  plays  which  have  enjoyed  some,  by  no 
means  unmerited,  repute.  He  died  in  1 69 5, almost  ninety 
years  of  age,  and  with  him  the  family  of  Killigrew  dis- 
appeared from  the  stage  of  court  and  public  affairs  in 
England. 


XXI 

PORTRAIT  OF  MRS.  ANNE  KIRKE 

LORD  LUCAS,  NATIONAL  GALLERY 

AMONG  the  families  who  established  themselves  in 
J~±  favour  at  the  courts  of  King  James  I.  and  King 
Charles  I.  none  was  so  prominent,  so  assertive,  or 
took  so  much  part  in  promoting  the  gaiety  and  liveliness 
of  court  life  as  the  Cornish  family  of  Killigrew.  It  was 
by  wit  and  address  that  the  Killigrews  got  on,  for  they 
had  neither  wealth  nor  rank  to  bring  them  into  notice. 
An  account  of  Sir  Robert  Killigrew,  and  his  children,  Sir 
William  and  Thomas  Killigrew,  has  been  given  in  the 
preceding  article. 

These  gay  spirits  had  several  sisters,  who  played  as 
lively  a  note  at  court  as  their  brothers.  One  of  these  fair 
ladies,  Anne  Killigrew,  was  the  wife  of  George  Kirke, 
Gentleman  of  the  Robes  to  Charles  I.,  and  was  herself  one 
of  the  powerful  ladies-in-waiting  to  Queen  Henrietta 
Maria,  and  attached  to  her  royal  person. 

The  Killigrew  family  were  all  among  the  sitters  to 
Van  Dyck.  Mrs.  Kirke  evidently  had  a  high  opinion  of 
the  handsome  painter,  as  she  sat  to  him  for  more  than  one 
portrait.   In  one  of  these,  here  reproduced,  the  painter  has 

2  I 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

put  forth  some  of  his  best  efforts,  and  has  made  the  por- 
trait a  special  study  in  golden  yellows.  That  this  colour 
was  something  of  a  favourite  with  Van  Dyck  is  known 
from  the  notes  on  the  technique  of  painting  kept  by  the 
famous  physician,  Sir  Theodore  Turquct  de  Mayerne. 
Mayerne  speaks  of  Van  Dyck's  treatment  of  yellow,  and 
says, '  He  makes  use  of  orpiment,  which  is  the  finest  yellow 
that  is  to  be  found ;  but  it  dries  very  slowly,  and,  when 
mixed  with  other  colours,  it  destroys  them.  In  order  to 
make  it  dry  a  little  ground  glass  should  be  added  to  it.  In 
making  use  of  it,  it  should  be  applied  by  itself:  the  drapery 
(for  which  alone  it  is  fit)  having  been  prepared  with  other 
yellows.  Upon  these,  when  dry,  the  lights  should  be 
painted  with  orpiment:  your  work  will  then  be  in  the 
highest  degree  beautiful.' 

In  this  beautiful  portrait  Mrs.  Kirke  stands  at  full 
length  in  a  garden  in  yellow  silk,  with  a  little  dog  leaping 
at  her  skirt.  The  portrait  was  in  the  possession  of  Sir 
Peter  Lely,  who  made  a  special  study  of  it.  At  the  sale  of 
Lely's  collection  in  1682  it  was  bought  by  Henry  Grey, 
Earl  of  Kent,  from  whom  it  has  descended  by  inheritance 
through  the  Earls  of  Hardwicke  and  Cowper  to  its  present 
owner,  Lord  Lucas,  by  whom  it  has  been  deposited  on 
loan  in  the  National  Gallery. 


XXII 

LUCIUS  CARY,  SECOND  VISCOUNT 

FALKLAND 

DUKE  OF  DEVONSHIRE,  DEVONSHIRE  HOUSE,  LONDON 

LUCIUS  CARY,  born  in  1 609  or  1 6 1  o,  was  the  son  of 
j  Sir  Henry  Cary,  Lord  Deputy  of  Ireland,  who  was 
in  1620  created  Viscount  Falkland  in  the  Scottish 
peerage.  His  mother,  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Sir  Laurence 
Tanfield,  Chief  Baron  of  the  Exchequer,  was  noted  for 
her  learning,  her  linguistic  attainments,  and  her  religious 
zeal.  He  was  educated  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  but  in 
1625  inherited  from  his  grandfather,  by  whom,  in  conse- 
quence of  dissensions  between  his  parents,  he  had  been 
principally  brought  up,  the  manors  of  Bashford  and  Great 
Tew  in  Oxfordshire,  of  which  he  took  possession  in  1629, 
when  about  nineteen  years  old.  As  early  marriages  were 
then  in  fashion,  Lucius  Cary  married,  before  he  was  of  age, 
Lettice,  daughter  of  Sir  Richard  Morrison,  a  step  which 
brought  about  a  final  quarrel  with  his  father,  so  that  he 
went  for  a  time  to  Holland.  On  his  return  Lucius  Cary 
settled  himself  down  to  a  life  of  study  and  rural  pursuits 
at  Great  Tew,  which  were  disturbed  by  his  father's  unex- 

2  K 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

pected  death  in  1633,  which  compelled  him  to  come  to 
London  to  settle  his  family  affairs.  At  this  time  Lord 
Falkland  was  very  much  under  the  influence  of  his 
mother,  a  fervent  Catholic,  but  this  was  counteracted  by 
his  friendship  with  Dr.  Chillingworth,  and  the  doctrines 
known  as  Socinianism,  which  produced  strained  relations 
with  his  mother,  until  her  death  in  1639. 

Lord  Falkland  preferred  the  peace  of  country  life  to 
the  affairs  of  State  or  the  distractions  of  a  court.  His 
house  was  the  resort  of  learned  men  from  Oxford  and 
London,  and  many  contemporary  authorities  agree  in 
praising  the  charm  of  his  character  as  a  host,  his  intel- 
lectual powers,  and  the  modesty  with  which  he  engaged 
them. 

When  the  struggle  between  the  king  and  Parliament 
began,  Falkland  was  divided  in  his  interests,  but  loyalty 
compelled  him  to  join  the  cause  of  the  king,  and  he  volun- 
teered for  action  in  the  Scottish  campaign.  He  was  thus 
brought  into  public  life,  and  entered  Parliament.  His  in- 
tense zeal  for  liberty,  intellectual,  religious,  and  political, 
led  him  to  join  the  resistance  to  the  policies  of  Archbishop 
Laud  and  the  Earl  of  Strafford,  and  to  the  exaction  of 
ship-money.  At  the  same  time  loyalty  to  the  king  pre- 
vented him  from  joining  the  parliamentary  party.  In 
1642  he  was  appointed  Secretary  of  State,  and  soon  found 
himself  a  leader  in  a  war  which  he  detested,  and  in  which 
he  was  out  of  sympathy  with  either  of  the  contending 
parties.  Always  a  fatalist  and  weary  of  life,  he  anticipated 
with  joy  the  battle  of  Newbury,  where  he  exposed  him- 


LUCIUS  CARY,  VISCOUNT  FALKLAND 

self  with  a  recklessness  almost  amounting  to  suicide,  and 
found  the  death  to  which  he  had  looked  forward. 

The  beautiful  portrait  of  Lucius  Cary  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  must  have  been  painted, 
together  with  the  companion  portrait  of  Charles  Caven- 
dish, soon  after  Van  Dyck's  arrival  in  England,  when 
Lord  Falkland  made  his  first  appearance  in  London 
society.  There  are  few  faces  in  the  gallery  of  Van  Dyck's 
portraits  more  striking  than  that  of  the  young  student  of 
Great  Tew,  the  philosophic  politician,  who  illustrated  in 
his  life  and  death  the  futility  of  being  honest  enough  to 
see  both  sides  of  a  question. 


B 


XXIII 

THOMAS   WENTWORTH,  EARL  OF 
STRAFFORD,  AND  HIS  SECRETARY 

EARL  FITZWILLIAM,  WENTWORTH  WOODHOUSE 

UT  Wentworth, — who  ever  names  him  without 
thinking  of  those  harsh  dark  features,  ennobled 
by  their  expression  into  more  than  the  majesty 
of  an  antique  Jupiter  ;  of  that  brow,  that  eye,  that  cheek, 
that  lip,  wherein,  as  in  a  chronicle,  are  written  the  events 
of  many  stormy  and  disastrous  years,  high  enterprise 
accomplished,  frightful  dangers  braved,  power  unspar- 
ingly exercised,  suffering  unshrinkingly  borne,  of  that 
fixed  look,  so  Rill  of  severity,  of  mournful  anxiety,  of  deep 
thought,  of  dauntless  resolution,  which  seems  at  once  to 
forebode  and  to  defy  a  terrible  fate,  as  it  lowers  on  us  from 
the  living  canvas  of  Van  Dyck  ?      Even  at  this  day  the 
haughty  earl  overawes  posterity  as  he  overawed  his  con- 
temporaries, and  excites  the  same  interest  when  arraigned 
before  the  tribunal  of  history  which  he  excited  at  the  bar 
of  the  House  of  Lords.     In  spite  of  ourselves,  we  some- 
times feel  towards  his  memory  a  certain  relenting  similar 
to  that  relenting  which  his  defence,  as  Sir  John  Denham 
tells  us,  produced  in  Westminster  Hall.' 


2  L 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

In  this  famous  paragraph,  from  his  essay  on  Lord 
Nugent's  Memorials  of  Hampden^  the  great  historian, 
Lord  Macaulay,  pays  his  tribute  to  Anthony  Van  Dyck 
as  a  painter  of  history.  It  is  difficult,  perhaps,  to  gauge 
how  much  of  the  sympathy  with  the  royalist  cause  has 
been  due  to  the  portraits  by  Van  Dyck.  Charles  I., 
with  his  pathetic  and  fateful  look,  excites  a  sympathy  and 
a  passionate  devotion  which  is  denied  to  Walker's  power- 
ful rendering  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  Strafford  and  Laud 
live  for  posterity  in  Van  Dyck's  portraits,  and  it  is  impos- 
sible to  dissociate  one's  judgment  of  their  share  in  the 
opening  scenes  of  the  great  drama  of  the  Civil  War  from 
the  sense  of  personality  which  is  imposed  by  Van  Dyck's 
particular  interpretation  of  their  character. 

In  this  Van  Dyck  establishes  his  claim  to  be  regarded 
as  an  interpreter  of  character,  as  well  as  a  painter  of 
elegant  and  attractive  portraits.  It  would  have  been  easy 
to  fail  with  Strafford,  and  to  have  made  him  clumsy  and 
unattractive.  It  is  in  the  portrait  also  that  Van  Dyck's 
strength  lies.  The  group  itself  is  nothing  but  a  transcript 
from  a  well-known  group  of  Andrea  Doria  and  his  Secre- 
tary, by  Titian,  at  Genoa,  of  which  several  versions 
exist,  and  with  which  Van  Dyck  must  have  been  well 
acquainted.  Van  Dyck  has  concentrated  all  his  art  on 
the  head  and  hand  of  Strafford,  the  portrait  of  the  Secre- 
tary, Mainwaring,  being  of  secondary  importance  in  itself, 
but  of  the  greatest  value  as  a  counterfoil  to  that  of  the 
great  earl  his  master. 

It  is  in  such  a  painting  that  Van  Dyck  shows  how  in 


THOMAS  WENTWORTH  AND  HIS  SECRETARY 

London  his  hand  had  by  no  means  lost  its  cunning, 
although  the  demands  of  fashion  and  the  insistence  of 
his  clients  compelled  him  to  fall  back  upon  his  assistants, 
and  to  leave  a  great  part  of  the  work  entirely  in  their 
hands. 


MVBHHM9B 


XXIV 

WILLIAM  II.,  PRINCE  OF  ORANGE, 
AND  PRINCESS  MARY  STUART 

RYKS  MUSEUM,  AMSTERDAM 

ROYAL  marriages  are  more  often  than  not  arranged 
for  political  purposes  rather  than  from  any  chance 
of  affection  or  love  being  shown  by  the  parties 
concerned  before  they  were  tied  together  for  life.  In 
1 64 1  the  bright  days  of  King  Charles  I.'s  reign  were  be- 
ginning to  close  in  storm  clouds  and  threatenings  of  worse 
tempests  to  come.  For  various  reasons,  political  and  re- 
ligious, an  alliance  with  the  States  of  Holland  was  desirable, 
and  it  seemed  that  the  best  way  of  bringing  this  about 
was  a  marriage  between  the  boy,  William,  son  of  Prince 
Frederick  Henry  of  Orange  and  Amalia  van  Solms- 
Braunfels,  and  the  Princess  Royal, Mary,  eldest-born  child 
of  Charles  I.  and  Henrietta  Maria.  The  boy  was  but  fif- 
teen, the  girl  nine  years  old,  yet  their  fate  was  sealed  and 
their  troth  plighted  before  either  of  the  children  had 
arrived  at  years  of  discretion.  Holland  was  at  first  con- 
sidered an  unworthy  alliance  for  the  Princess  Royal  of 
England,  who  seemed  at  one  time  destined  for  her  first 
cousin,  the  Elector  Palatine.      Obstacles  were,  however, 

2  M 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

overcome,  and  on  May  2,  1641,  a  Sunday  and  a  day,  as  it 
happened,  of  great  gloom,  the  children  were  united  in 
marriage  at  Whitehall. 

This  was  the  last  festivity  at  the  court  of  Charles  I. 
and  Henrietta  Maria.  It  was  natural  that  the  services  of 
their  court-painter  should  be  required.  Sir  Anthony  Van 
Dyck,  broken  in  health  and  weary  of  his  life  at  the  English 
court,  and  of  unpaid  commissions,  had  gone  some  months 
before  to  Antwerp  to  arrange  for  his  taking  up  the  artistic 
heritage  of  his  late  master,  Rubens,  and  had  since  gone  to 
France  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  a  great  commission  there, 
like  that  entrusted  to  Rubens  at  the  Palais  du  Luxembourg. 
In  this  hope  he  had  been  bitterly  disappointed,  and  re- 
turned to  London,  mortified  in  his  vanity  and  suffering 
in  his  health. 

Van  Dyck  was  called  upon  to  paint  the  young 
couple,  and  among  other  portraits  executed  the  popular 
double  portrait  of  the  bride  and  bridegroom  hand-in- 
hand.  It  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  of  Van  Dyck's 
groups,  although  the  handling  of  the  picture  is  weaker 
and  tamer  than  in  his  earlier  days.  Ill-health,  no  doubt, 
dulled  the  painter's  skill.  There  were  doubtless  many  de- 
mands in  Holland  and  England  for  portraits  of  the  young 
prince  and  his  bride,  but  it  is  doubtful  to  what  extent  they 
were  executed  by  Van  Dyck  himself.  Jane,  Countess  of 
Roxburghe,  who  had  been  the  princess's  governess,  wrote 
in  August  1 64 1  to  Baron  de  Brederode  at  The  Hague  : 
1  Le  malheur  m'en  a  tant  voulu  que  Monsieur  Van  Dyck 
a  presque  toujours  este  malade  depuis  votre  depart  de  ce 


WILLIAM  II.  AND  PRINCESS  MARY  STUART 

Pays,  tellement  que  je  n'ay  pu  avoir  le  portrait  qu'il  fai- 
soit  de  monsieur  le  prince  jusqu'a  cette  heure.  Mais  il 
a  promis  asseurement  a  la  Reyne  qu'il  auroit  le  vostre 
prest  dans  huict  jours !  et  qu'il  desiroit  le  porter  lui- 
mesme  avec  un  autre  qu'il  faisoit  pour  Madame  la  prin- 
cesse  d'Auranges.  II  est  resolu  de  partir  dans  dix  ou  douze 
jours  de  ce  pays  par  le  plus  tard :  et  en  passant  par  l'Hol- 
lande  il  vous  donnera  le  portrait  de  Madame.'  The 
painter  probably  managed  to  execute  his  commission,  for 
he  was  at  Antwerp  again  in  October  1 64 1 ,  and  in  Novem- 
ber again  in  Paris,  whence  he  returned  to  London  only  to 
die  on  December  9  following. 

The  double  portrait  of  William  II.  and  Mary  Stuart 
remained  a  cherished  possession  of  the  royal  family  in 
England,  until  their  son's  accession  to  the  throne  as 
William  III.  King  William,  whose  heart  remained  in  his 
native  country  of  Holland,  removed  this  painting  and 
others  of  great  value  to  his  Dutch  palace  of  Het  Loo. 
After  his  death  these  pictures  were  reclaimed  by  Queen 
Anne,  but  the  government  of  the  States-General  declined 
to  return  them.  As  the  demand  was  not  pressed  the 
picture  remained  in  Holland,  and  the  double  portrait  of 
William  and  Mary  by  Van  Dyck  adorns  the  Ryks  Museum 
at  Amsterdam  instead  of  Windsor  Castle. 


XXV 

PORTRAIT  OF  ANTHONY  VAN 
DYCK  WITH  A  SUNFLOWER 

DUKE  OF  WESTMINSTER,  GROSVENOR  HOUSE,  LONDON 

A  NTHONY  VAN  DYCK  painted  his  own  portrait 
x\.  several  times  during  his  later  years.  The  portrait 
of  himself,  pointing  to  a  sunflower,  was  repeated  in 
many  versions,  one  of  the  best  of  which  is  in  the  collec- 
tion of  the  Duke  of  Westminster,  K.G.,  at  Grosvenor 
House.  Another  version,  which  is  perhaps  the  original, 
belongs  to  Baron  de  Gargan  at  Brussels,  while  others  are 
to  be  found  in  the  Galleries  at  Gotha  and  Carlsruhe,  and 
in  various  other  private  collections  in  England.  Van  Dyck 
is  richly  clad  in  crimson  silk,  with  a  gold  chain  over  his 
right  shoulder.  He  lifts  this  ostentatiously  with  his  left 
hand,  while  with  his  right  he  points  to  a  large  sunflower. 
The  face  has  grown  longer  and  thinner,  the  features 
sharper,  and  lines  are  beginning  to  show  in  the  face, 
although  the  painter  could  not  be  more  than  forty  years 
of  age.  An  allegorical  interpretation  has  been  sought  for 
the  portrait  ;  the  painter  is  supposed  to  be  indicating  the 
value  of  princely  patronage  by  the  gold  chain  of  office  and 
the  flower  [girasole)^  which  ever  turns  its  face  to  the  sun. 

2  N 


ANTHONY  VAN  DYCK 

A  similar  portrait,  however,  exists  of  Van  Dyck's  friend, 
Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  at  Hawarden  Castle.  Digby,  who  is 
also  pointing  to  a  sunflower,  was  closely  associated  with 
Van  Dyck  at  this  period,  and  the  painter  is  supposed  to 
have  injured  his  health  by  dabbling  with  Kenelm  Digby 
in  alchemy  and  astrology  and  the  search  for  the  philoso- 
pher's stone. 

Van  Dyck's  appearance  in  this  portrait  is  sufficient  to 
prepare  one  for  the  news  of  his  breakdown  in  health  and 
early  death.  Hard  work  and  hard  living  have  told  on  his 
constitution.  An  even  more  painful  effect  is  produced  by 
the  portrait  of  himself  at  Windsor  Castle,  wrapped  in  a 
black  cloak,  and  evidently  painted  as  a  companion  to  the 
famous  portrait  of  Rubens  at  Vienna.  Portraits  of  Van 
Dyck  at  this  period  are  fairly  numerous,  but  very  few  can 
be  attributed  to  his  own  brush.  Among  these  may  be 
noted  the  portrait  in  the  Louvre,  probably  painted  for 
Jabach,  his  friend  and  patron  ;  that  painted  for  the  Grand 
Duke  of  Tuscany  at  Florence  ;  and  the  double  portrait 
of  himself  and  his  friend,  John  Digby,  Earl  of  Bristol,  in 
the  Prado  at  Madrid.  Perhaps  the  finest  portrait  of  him- 
self is  the  head  which  he  etched  for  the  title-page  of  his 
Centum  Icones\  this  portrait  in  its  pure  etched  state,  as  it 
left  Van  Dyck's  hands,  is  one  of  the  most  perfect  works  of 
art  in  existence.  It  shows  Van  Dyck  at  the  zenith  of  his 
career,  beiore  illness  had  begun  to  sharpen  the  delicate 
features  and  disappointment  to  dull  the  brilliant  look  of 
prosperity. 


Text  printed  by  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  His  Majesty,  Edinburgh 
Plates  engraved  and  printed  by   Henry    Stone  and  Son,   Ltd.,   Banbury 


University  of  CaWomla 
SOUTHERN  ^G.ONAL  LIBRARY  F^ITY^ 

from  whlcMtj^ojrowe^ 


000  189  ( 


■ 


i'l 

I 

Km 
1  I 


1 


